"It Was Brutal": 2nd Boeing-Linked Whistleblower Dies

  Will Boeing ever build a new plane? The chances are 50/50 but if they do, be certain that the price tag will be X10 and the problems too numerous to count. 

  Not that there will be too many whistle blowers to do the counting since their mortality rate seems to be rising fast. Attentive observers would wonder why it is so unhealthy to say the wrong things in America and why statistics obey strange laws regarding these people. (But who is "attentive" nowadays when the next "news" is already being pushed to our sceens?)

  In the end the obfuscation of the truth, if that's what it is. won't save the system. Early intervention is always better than kicking the can down the road. Unless of course the problems are systemic in which case there is little you can do.

"It Was Brutal": 2nd Boeing-Linked Whistleblower Dies

A whistleblower at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems died Tuesday morning following a struggle with a 'sudden, fast-spreading infection,' the Seattle Times reports.

45-year-old Joshua Dean, a former mechanical engineer and quality auditor from Wichita, Kansas, alleged that Spirit leadership ignored manufacturing defects on the 737 MAX, including 'mechanics improperly drilling holes in the aft pressure bulkhead of the MAX.' When he brought this up with management, he said that nothing was done about it. So he filed a safety complaint with the FAA - and said that Spirit had used him as a scapegoat while they lied to the agency about the defects.

"After I was fired, Spirit AeroSystems [initially] did nothing to inform the FAA, and the public" regarding the bulkhead defects, said Dean in his complaint.

In November, the FAA suggested to Dean in a letter that his claims had merit, writing "The investigation determined that your allegations were appropriately addressed under an FAA-approved safety program," adding "However, due to the privacy provisions of those programs, specific details cannot be released."

Dean also gave a deposition in a Spirit shareholder lawsuit.

The shareholder lawsuit alleging that Spirit management withheld information on the quality flaws and harmed stockholders was filed in December. Supporting the suit, Dean provided a deposition detailing his allegations.

After a panel blew off a Boeing 737 MAX plane in January, bringing new attention to the quality lapses at Spirit, one of Dean’s former Spirit colleagues confirmed some of Dean’s allegations. -Seattle Times

He had been in good health, and 'was noted for having a healthy lifestyle,' according to the report.

He had been in critical condition for two weeks, according to his aunt Carol Parsons, who said he became ill and went to the hospital due to breathing difficulties. He was intubated, after which he developed pneumonia and then MRSA, a serious bacterial infection.

His condition deteriorated rapidly, and he was airlifted from Wichita to a hospital in Oklahoma City, Parsons said. There he was put on an ECMO machine, which circulates and oxygenates a patient’s blood outside the body, taking over heart and lung function when a patient’s organs don’t work on their own. -Seattle Times

Doctors had considered amputating both hands and both feet.

"It was brutal what he went through," said Parsons. "Heartbreaking."

Dean was fired in April 2023, after which he filed a complaint with the Department of Labor, alleging he had been terminated in retaliation for blowing the whistle.

He was represented by the South Carolina law firm that represented Boeing whistleblower John "Mitch" Barnett, who was found dead in an 'apparent suicide' in March in Charleston.

Barnett was in the middle of giving depositions suggesting that Boeing retaliated against him over complaints related to quality issues when he was found dead from a gunshot wound.

The Charleston County Coroner’s Office reported Barnett’s death appeared to be “from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” Almost two months later, the police investigation into his death is still ongoing. -Seattle Times

"Whistleblowers are needed. They bring to light wrongdoing and corruption in the interests of society. It takes a lot of courage to stand up," said Brian Knowles, one of Dean's lawyers. "It’s a difficult set of circumstances. Our thoughts now are with John’s family and Josh’s family."

In March, Boeing was rumored to be in talks to buy Spirit, as both companies have come under increasing pressure from airline customers and federal regulators to shore up quality issues following a January 5th incident in which a door plug blew out mid-flight on a 737 MAX 9.

Four days later, United Airlines found "loose bolts" on 737 MAX doors following an emergency inspection.

IT’S STARTING - Russia Just Issued A DEVASTATING Warning To The West (Video - 10mn)

  Russell brand is sometimes difficult to follow being more entertainment in his style than true information. (But I guess he wouldn't be allowed online otherwise.) Still, he tends to push the right buttons on the right issues.

 We are truly on hedge in Ukraine. The country may be existential for the credibility of Europe but it is likewise existential for the security of Russia. Sending troops from NATO there may be a step too far. Can we walk back from the brink?

 

Saudi Arabia’s Catastrophic “Everything” Problem (Video - 52mn)

  A stunning and superbly instructive video about Saudi Arabia and their geo-strategic predicament. (Must watch!)

 

It's The End Of The Foreign Exchange Reserves As We Know It... Don't Feel Fine About It by Tom Luongo

  Tom Luongo is partisan to say the least but that doesn't make his analysis wrong.

  America just like Rome will not be conquered from the outside but will crumble from its own mistakes. And what worse mistake can you do than show the world that your money cannot be trusted? Absolutely everybody from Xi Jinping to the most remote war lord lost in a jungle in Africa gets the message loud and clear: Now is the time to get away from the dollar! (I feel some "deja vu" about this sentence!) Are the Americans mad or imbeciles? For short term gains, they are shooting themselves in the foot. The damage will be immense and can truly harm their "exorbitant advantage" according to the words of Charles de Gaulle. Madness!

Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, 'n Guns blog,

“Birthday party, cheesecake, jelly bean, Boom!”
— R.E.M.

The world we’ve known is over. The US Congress finally pushed the big red button. When the West froze around $300 billion of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves in March 2022 it was the first step in breaking down the system of foreign exchange reserves that makes up the global economy.

Freezing assets of countries they are mad at isn’t new behavior from the locusts that run the G-7 countries. We still have to listen to conservatards whine about Obama giving Iran back “pallets of cash” for signing the JCPOA (Iran Nuclear Deal) in 2015, when all he did was unfreeze assets we’d frozen in 1979…

… 1979, folks. Seriously. Get a grip on reality. Obama gave Iran back their money. I’m no Obama fan, far from it, but as payments go, it was really nothing.

Freezing assets, however, isn’t really theft, it’s just the tip.

The money frozen in 2022 was supposed to operate the same way. It was supposed to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into ending the war in Ukraine. The theory being that the oligarchs whose money that represented would push Putin out of power to get that money back.

Theories, by the way, speaking as a scientist, mostly suck.

Putin used this to his advantage, rallying the world around him and to the burgeoning BRICS Alliance. It worked a treat and here we are with $90 per barrel oil, raging inflation and a shattered Ukraine.

Typically, the British call this, “money well spent.”

Overall, it was a statement by the G-7 that no one’s money is safe. Look, no offense to Iran (or Venezuela or anyone else who previously ran into this problem), but cutting them out of the global economy was an effective piece of intimidation of everyone else.

It had it’s limits, however. And the increasingly common usage of sanctions while possibly effective in enforcing the rules based order demanded by the G-7, only decreased the cost/benefit analysis of playing by those rules in the future. Eventually someone would turn what was supposed to be a weakness into a strength.

No self-proclaimed ‘serious person’ in DC, London and/or Brussels thought that doing something so arrogant (and stupid) to one of the most important commodity-producing countries in the world would backfire on them. When you stop to think about it we’re talking about a country, Russia, that in 2023 exported more wheat than the 3rd largest producer (the US) harvested — approx. 60 million tonnes exported (RUS) vs. 47 million tonnes produced (US).

So, like the hubristic morons they are, our leadership thought this would work. It didn’t.

Or was their plan even dumber?

Because the recent actions by the US vis a vis Russia and China is so dumb it defies description. Congress has authorized President Joah Bii-DEN! to seize Russia’s foreign exchange reserves as they have threatened to do for the past six months and hand the money to Ukraine.

This isn’t the tip anymore, this is just outright theft.

And they call this #winning.

Leaving aside the inconsolable butthurt this move implies, it really signifies that this may have actually been the plan all along.

In their April 26th livestream, the Alexes at The Duran brought up the brilliant point that the real target of this move to seize Russia’s forex reserves wasn’t Russia, but China. (START AT the 3:00)

By all accounts the US has frozen a small portion of the $300 billion of Russia’s money sitting around now collecting interest because of Jerome Powell. But in the Age of Bii-Den! no foreign policy blunder is too small, no shakedown attempt to brazen, and no act of diplomatic vandalism too destructive.

Sec. of State Antony Blinken’s ‘performance’ in Beijing was nothing short of a declaration of war, as Alex Mercouris put it, and he’s absolutely right. It’s good to see both of them come to the same conclusion I reached during the first days of the Bii-Denn! Junta…

… that they are trying to destroy the United States.

So, all in all, the threat hangs out there that the G-7 stands ready to seize Russia’s forex reserves, which is an implicit threat to China that the US will cancel all outstanding debts owed to China because we are at war with them.

Because this is exactly where this leads.

Russia famously sold all of their US Treasury reserves in 2021 in preparation for war with NATO over Ukraine. There were no CUSIPs to cancel unilaterally by the US. As always, Vlad is one step ahead of the predictably brutish neocons at the US Dept. of State.

Even though Vicky the Hutt is gone and the US is offering a few fig leaves to Russia here and there to simulate attempts at opening up a diplomatic end to Ukraine, Russia is looking at Blinken, David Cameron (UK), Josep Borrell (EU) and the rest of the Gang that Can’t Sanction Straight and calmly saying, “Nyet. Fuck you, pay me.”

And, by all accounts, the EU is paying Russia while Bii-Denn! tries to open up global oil markets in a desperate bid to bring oil prices down because “Our Money, Your Problem” is now “Our Commodities, Your Political Unrest” or something like that.

This speaks to the heart of this matter, there is no trust left between these ‘combatants’ and, by extension, the rest of the world. Global trade rests on trust. Trust that if you do business in one country, what you’ve personally earned is considered your property. If that trust is broken it’s not likely not coming back anytime soon.

Seizing those assets is simply spitting in the eye of the very ideas on which Pax Americana was built. You can say it was always a lie and that’s your prerogative, but the key to continuing any good racket is not to shake down the mark to the point where he sees the grift.

I guess they no longer teach that at Globalist Central.

The saddest part about this is that, truly, the target of this insanity isn’t even China or Russia or Iran… the real target is us, the people who are responsible for the debt their inanity represents. The real problem is that they are broke, are about to break all of the promises of the past two generations, and want you to believe it was Russia and China’s fault.

But these people are simple, garden variety narcissistic abusers, who sit there in their ivory towers nursing the holes where their hearts are supposed to be, screaming, “Why are you making me beat you like this!”

Why indeed?

BOOM!

I was contacted by Sputnik News for comments on this issue which were far more professional than those I just typed. As always, in the interests of transparency, I publish the full comments for your confirmation of whatever you think of me. :)

The US House passed legislation that would give Biden the legal authority to confiscate frozen Russian financial assets and transfer to them to Ukraine. 

1. If the US really does pull the trigger and confiscates Russia’s financial assets, what are some of the potential consequences for the hegemony of the US dollar and financial system? 

I could write a book on this issue, to be honest. But, in short, nothing good.  What this would do is ensure the US is no longer a place where trade and business are protected by law.  Congress is literally throwing the entire concept of foreign exchange into the trash can and lighting it on fire by giving President Biden this power, which no one should have.

This isn’t about Russia or anyone’s opinion about what they are doing in Ukraine.  This is about the US as a bastion for the rule of law as it pertains to business and banking.  Now, we’ve been trending towards this moment for the past two decades, but this would be a move from which the current US government cannot and will not recover from.

It will signal to the rest of the world that their money is no longer safe from confiscation if it is held in US banks.  That at any time if someone in Congress has a grudge against you, they can just seize it and move on.  We Americans have lived under the spectre of ‘asset forfeiture’ laws for years as a consequence of our “War on Drugs” during the Reagan administration.  The corruption it created is legendary. 

Every country looking to do business with the US in the future now lives with that.  This one act is what signals the end of the modern era of finance and trade.  From here the world will fracture and the US will lose trillions in future trade.  This confirms my argument that US leadership are vandals intent on the collapse of the US rather than having any allegiance whatsoever to the people or what’s left of the ideals on which the country was founded. 

2. How are other countries likely to react to such a move? Are there any other alternatives to the US dollar and financial system that they could turn to?

This move will not have immediate effects that we’ll see play out in capital markets beyond accelerating trends already in place.  As of right now there is no alternative to the US dollar because of its primacy in settling global trade.  The euro gave up that potential role when they went to negative interest rates last decade.

The Chinese yuan is not ready for this role either.  But with this move by the US, it will now gain momentum towards fulfilling that role. And, believe me, the Chinese government is fully aware of this.

In the short run, paradoxically, it will cause a run into the US dollar, as people who need them to service debt will hoard them, but with the intention of paying those debts off.  This will put upward pressure on the dollar making our sovereign debt that much harder to service.  The vandals of the Biden administration are fully aware of this, and if anything, are cheering it on. 

But once trust is broken it is nearly impossible to regain it.  Capital flows to where it is treated best.  This was the US’s real super-power for all of these years.  We treated capital well.  It’s what drove our banking dominance.  That dominance will fade and the world, in the short term, will turn to gold until a new system emerges.

3. US lawmakers are constantly saying that giving more money to the US military industrial complex via Ukraine spending is great for the economy, creates jobs. Is that actually the case?

Yes, most of the money isn’t actually going to Ukraine.  I suspect that most of it is going to replace what we’ve already stripped from ours and the rest of NATO’s stores.  This money is just ensuring that the war wanted so desperately by the people who stand behind our politicians is fully funded.

War is not good for the economy, it diverts precious capital from productive innovation into weapons and bombs.  As always, all they sell us on is the stuff that is seen, the jobs for making bombs.  What they ignore are the costs to that, the unseen things we didn’t build with that same money that would alleviate future needs.  It’s just pathetic grandstanding and it’s why representative Republics always fail the same way. 

Creating jobs is a politician’s priority, but it isn’t in the people’s priority.  What the people want is to not be looted and create their own opportunities. But that implies we don’t need the politicians, which we don’t, and we can’t have that gaining traction, now can we?

Government Breaks Silence: Strange Encounters | UFO's Investigating the Unknown (Video - 42mn)

   I have always been fascinated by UFOs. What are they? Where do they come from? And as many other controversial subjects, we've been told dutifully that they were mostly illusions, a trick of the mind, weaker people falling prey to their inner demons and beliefs. Nothing to see there, then?

   But see they kept doing, military and civil pilots, people trained to make the difference between flying toasters and their imagination, most of the time sober and not prone to fly of fancy. And the descriptions kept piling up, diverse, surprising, often original and unlikely. What to make of it?

  Here's an interesting, recent and original investigation from National Geographic below. 

  Personally, I have come to believe the following:

  1 - The Universe is infinite and is pregnant with life. Life must therefore be everywhere. (We can only observe a 35 billion light-years sphere in a 13.7 billion light-years old Universe, an interesting paradox in itself but the whole Universe must be much larger than that. Probably infinite.)

  2 - Still, I do believe in the "rare Earth" hypothesis. Life is complex and therefore rare. It requires exceptional circumstances to emerge as our own solar system proves. Likewise most stars cannot generate life: Too short lived, too much radiations, too little "metallicity" (any atom except hydrogen and helium is a metal by definition generated by a star explosion. Nova or super-nova.) So a goldlilock planet around a rare sun in a special zone of the galaxy is required.

3 - The "zoo hypothesis" is the right one. Advanced civilizations, if they exist, do not interfere with less advanced ones as interference always end up in destruction. We will never be contacted, as long as we are in our "human" condition. It would destroy us one way or another. This is probably a known rule respected by all life forms.

4 - You do not "discover" advanced civilizations. They are for our purpose perfectly invisible. Using technologies we do not fathom for purposes we do not understand. Our own world in a few decades in unknowable. More advanced civilizations are unthinkable. Forever beyond our intellectual horizon, AI included.

5 - For that reason, Area 51 and "debris " from alien crafts are bogus beliefs. Advanced beings do not cross the Universe to end up somehow crashing on our shores. Reverse engineering of alien technology is likewise meaningless. What could Rome's most brilliant minds would have done with a micro-processor? (Without understanding mater, electricity, waves, relativity, without a microscope to observe it, without anything really!) And that's just a mere 2,000 years of technological progress! 

What then, do nothing? Not quite. We can still learn with more observations, statistical tools and modelization. We'll probably never know anything exact about "them", (as for physics and the uncertainty principle where you cannot know exactly location and other properties of a particle at the same time.) but we will understand more and more until we become what they are if evolution is convergent which is likely.

 In the meantime, enjoy the mystery.

Unification Of CBDCs? Global Banks Are Telling Us The End Of The Dollar System Is Near

Interesting although this is the soft landing scenario of the transfer of power from the dollar to digital money. The reality is that we're heading for a showdown between China and the US which will be financial before being military. This will greatly accelerate the downfall of the USD. Look out for black swans...

Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

World reserve status allows for amazing latitude in terms of monetary policy. The Federal Reserve understands that there is constant demand for dollars overseas as a means to more easily import and export goods. The dollar’s petro-status also makes it essential for trading oil globally. This means that the central bank of the US has been able to create fiat currency from thin air to a far higher degree than any other central bank on the planet while avoiding the immediate effects of hyperinflation.

Much of that cash as well as dollar denominated debt (physical and digital) ends up in the coffers of foreign central banks, international banks and investment firms where it is held as a hedge or used to adjust the exchange rates of other currencies for trade advantage. As much as one-half of the value of all U.S. currency is estimated to be circulating abroad.

World reserve status along with various debt instruments allowed the US government and the Fed to create tens of trillions of dollars in new currency after the 2008 credit crash, all while keeping inflation under control (sort of). The problem is that this system of stowing dollars overseas only lasts so long and eventually the consequences of overprinting come home to roost.

The Bretton Woods Agreement of 1944 established the framework for the rise of the US dollar and while the benefits are obvious, especially for the banks, there are numerous costs involved. Think of world reserve status as a “deal with the devil” – You get the fame, you get the fortune, you get the hot girlfriend and the sweet car, but one day the devil is coming to collect and when he does he’s going to take EVERYTHING, including your soul.

Unfortunately, I suspect the time is coming soon for the US and it may be in the form of a brand new Bretton Woods-like system that removes the dollar as world reserve and replaces it with a new digital basket structure. Global banks are essentially admitting to the plan for a complete overhaul of the dollar-based financial world and the creation of a CBDC-centric system built on “unified ledgers.”

There have been three recent developments all announced in succession that suggest the dollar’s replacement is imminent (before this decade is over).

The IMF’s XC Model – A Centralized Policy For CBDCs

The IMF’s XC platform was released as a theoretical model in November of 2022 and matches closely with their long discussed concept of a global Special Drawing Rights basket, only in this case it would tie together all CBDCs under one umbrella along with “legacy currencies.”

It’s promoted as a policy structure to make cross-border payments in CBDCs “easier” and this model is focused primarily on currency exchanges between governments and central banks. Of course, it places the IMF as the middle-man in terms of controlling the flow of digital transactions. The IMF suggests that the XC platform would make the transition from legacy currencies to CBDCs less complicated for the various nations involved.

As the IMF noted in a discussion on centralized ledgers in 2023:

“We could end up in a world where we have connected entities to some degree, but some entities and some countries that are excluded. And as a global and multilateral institution, we’re sort of aiming to, you know, provide a basic connectivity, a basic set of rules and governance that is truly multilateral and inclusive. So, I think that is—the ambition is to aim for innovation that is compatible with policy goals and that is inclusive relative to the broad membership of, say, the IMF.”

To translate, decentralized systems are bad. “Inclusivity” (collectivism) is good. And the IMF wants to work in tandem with other globalist institutions to be the facilitators (controllers) of that economic collectivism.

Bank For International Settlements Unified Ledger

Not more than a day after the IMF announced their XC platform goals, the BIS announced their plans for a unified ledger for all CBDCs called the ‘BIS Universal Ledger.’ The BIS specifically notes that the project is meant to “inspire trust in central bank digital currencies” while “overcoming the fragmentation of current tokenization efforts.”

While the IMF is focused on international policy control, the BIS is pursuing the technical aspects for the globalization of CBDCs. They make it clear in their white papers that a cashless society is in fact the end game and that digital transactions need to be monitored by a centralized entity in order to keep money “secure.” As the BIS argues in their extensive overview of Unified Ledgers:

“Today, the monetary system stands at the cusp of another major leap. Following dematerialisation and digitalisation, the key development is tokenisation – the process of representing claims digitally on a programmable platform. This can be seen as the next logical step in digital recordkeeping and asset transfer.”

“…The blueprint envisages these elements being brought together in a new type of financial market infrastructure (FMI) – a “unified ledger”. The full benefits of tokenisation could be harnessed in a unified ledger due to the settlement finality that comes from central bank money residing in the same venue as other claims. Leveraging trust in the central bank, a shared venue of this kind has great potential to enhance the monetary and financial system.

There are three major assertions made by the BIS in their program – First, the digitization of money is unavoidable and cash is going to disappear primarily because it makes moving money easier. Second, decentralized payment methods are unacceptable because they are “risky” and only central banks are qualified and “trustworthy” enough to mediate the exchange of money. Third, the use of Unified Ledgers is largely designed to track and trace and even investigate all CBDC transactions, for the public good, of course.

The BIS system deals far more in the realm of private transactions than the IMF example. It is the technical foundation for the centralization of all CBDCs, governed in part by the BIS and the IMF, and it is scheduled to go into wider use in the next two years. There are already multiple nations testing the BIS ledger today. It’s important to understand that whoever acts as the middle-man in the process of the global exchange of money is going to have all the power, over governments and over the populace.

If every movement of wealth is monitored, from the shift of billions between governments to the payment of a few dollars from an individual to a retailer, then every aspect of trade can be throttled on the whims of the observer.

SWIFT Cross Border Project – Another Way To Control The Behavior Of Countries

As we’ve seen with the attempt to use the SWIFT payment network as a bludgeon against Russia, there is an ulterior motive for globalists to have a high speed large scale monetary transaction hub. Again, this is all about centralization, and whoever controls the hub has the means to control trade…to a point.

Locking Russia out of SWIFT has done minimal damage to their economy exactly because there are alternative methods for transferring money to keep the flow of trade running. However, under a CBDC based global monetary umbrella, it would be impossible for any country to work outside the boundaries. It’s not only about the ease of shutting a nation out of the network, it’s also about having the power to immediately block the transfer of funds on the receiving end of the exchange.

Meaning, any funds from any Russian source could be tracked and cut off before they are allowed to get into the hands of, say, a recipient in China or India. Once all governments are completely under the thumb of a centralized monetary system, a centralized ledger and a centralized exchange hub, they will never be able to rebel and this control will trickle down to the general population.

I would also remind readers that the majority of nations are going right along with this program. China is most eager to join the global currency scheme. Russia is still part of the BIS, but their involvement in CBDCs is still unclear. The point is, don’t expect the BRICS to counteract the new monetary order, it’s not going to happen.

CBDCs Automatically Require The End Of The Dollar As World Reserve

So what do all these globalist projects with CBDCs have to do with the dollar and its venerated position as the world reserve currency? The bottom line is this: A unified CBDC system completely excludes the need or use-case for a world reserve currency. The Unified Ledger model takes all CBDCs and homogenizes them into a puddle of liquidity, each CBDC growing similar in characteristics over a short period of time.

The advantages of using the dollar disappear in this scenario and the value of currencies becomes relative to the middle-man. In other words, the IMF, BIS and other related institutions dictate the properties of CBDCs and thus there is no distinguishing aspect of any CBDC that makes one more valuable than the others.

Sure, some countries might be able to separate their currency to a point with superior production or superior technology, but the old model of having a big military as a way to ensure Forex and trade favors is dead. Eventually the globalists will make two predictable arguments:

1) “A world reserve currency under the control of one nation is unfair and we as global bankers need to make the system “more equal.””

2) “Why have a reserve currency at all when all transactions are moderated under our ledger anyway? The dollar is no longer any more easy to use for international trade than any other CBDC, right?”

Finally, the dollar has to die because it’s an integral part of the “old world” of material exchange. The globalists desire a cashless society because it is an easily controlled society. Think of the covid lockdowns and the attempts at vaccine passports – If they had a cashless system in place at that time, they would have gotten everything they wanted. Refuse to take the experimental vaccine? We’ll just shut off your digital accounts and you will starve.

This was even partially attempted (think Canadian trucker protests), but with physical cash there’s always a way around a digital embargo.  Without physical cash you have no other options unless you plan to live completely off the land and barter goods and services (a way of life most people in the first world need a lot of time to get used to).

I believe that a sizable percentage of the American populace will go to war before they accept a cashless society, but in the meantime, there is still the inevitability of a dollar crash to deal with. Globalist organizations are pushing CBDCs to go active VERY quickly, and as this happens along with the centralized ledgers the traditional dollar will swiftly lose favor. This means that those trillions in greenbacks held overseas will start flooding back into America all at once causing an inflationary disaster well beyond what we are witnessing today.

As much as the economy has benefited from world reserve status in the past it will suffer equally as the dollar fades, only to be replaced by a framework even worse than fiat. That is, unless there’s a dramatic upheaval that removes the globalist order from the equation entirely…

How EU Law Has Made The Internet Less Free For Everyone Else

   Disinformation, malinformation, misinformation, the nuances keep growing about the numerous ways YOU, never they, can get things wrong about almost everything and anything. Some nuances could have made the Vatican proud! We used to have science, a complicated process of validating truths which could never be absolute unlike religious truths. Not anymore. We now have THE science, born miraculously from the lips of globalist civil servants who know almost instantly what is and isn't true which also tend to favor suspiciously the interest of those companies who finance, sorry, contribute to their election. 

   Already as soon as I land in Europe half the sites I refer to are not available anymore. I guess I should be happy that the other half is still allowed. 

   Fortunately they don't care too much about astronomy these days. The political contribution of the stars must be rather low. Not so about virus, wars and other more specific subjects were a lobbyist in Brussels (and Washington) cares about the answer. 

  The real threshold will be in a year of so when real, online AI solutions will start being implemented. Then suddenly, the bars of our virtual jail will become much narrower. Enjoy these critical comments while you still can!

Authored by Mustafa Ekin Turan via The Mises Institute,

If you have been using the internet for longer than a couple of years, you might have noticed that it used to be much “freer.”

What freer means in this context is that there was less censorship and less stringent rules regarding copyright violations on social media websites such as YouTube and Facebook (and consequently a wider array of content), search engines used to often show results from smaller websites, there were less “fact-checkers,” and there were (for better or for worse) less stringent guidelines for acceptable conduct. In the last ten years, the internet’s structure and environment have undergone radical changes. This has happened in many areas of the internet; however, this article will specifically focus on the changes in social media websites and search engines.

This article will argue that changes in European Union regulations regarding online platforms played an important role in shaping the structure of the internet to the way it is today and that further changes in EU policy that will be even more detrimental to freedom on the internet may be on the horizon.

Now that readers have an idea of what “change” is referring to, we should explain in detail which EU regulations played a part in bringing it about. The first important piece of regulation we will deal with is the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market that came out in 2019. Article 17 of this directive states that online content-sharing service platforms are liable for the copyrighted content that is posted on their websites if they do not have a license for said content. To be exempt from liability, the websites must show that they exerted their best efforts to ensure that copyrighted content does not get posted on their sites, cooperated expeditiously to take the content down if posted, and took measures to make sure the content does not get uploaded again. If these websites were ever in a place to be liable for even a significant minority of the content uploaded to them, the financial ramifications would be immense.

Due to this regulation, around the same period, YouTube and many other sites strengthened their policy regarding copyrighted content, and ever since then—sometimes rightfully, sometimes wrongfully—content creators have been complaining about their videos getting flagged for copyright violations.

Another EU regulation that is of note for our topic is the Digital Services Act that came out in 2023. The Digital Services Act is a regulation that defines very large online platforms and search engines as platform sites with more than forty-five million active monthly users and places specific burdens on these sites along with the regulatory burden that is eligible for all online platforms. The entirety of this act is too long to be discussed in this article; however, some of the most noteworthy points are as follows:

1. The EU Commission (the executive body of the EU) will work directly with very large online platforms to ensure that their terms of service are compatible with requirements regarding hate speech and disinformation as well as the additional requirements of the Digital Services Act. The EU Commission also has the power to directly influence the terms of conduct of these websites.

2. Very large online platforms and search engines have the obligation to ban and preemptively fight against and alter their recommendation systems to discriminate against many different types of content ranging from hate speech and discrimination to anything that might be deemed misinformation and disinformation.

These points should be concerning to anyone who uses the internet. The vagueness of terms such as “hate speech” and “disinformation” allows the EU to influence the recommendation algorithms and terms of service of these websites and to keep any content that goes against their “ideals” away from the spotlight or away from these websites entirely.

Even if the issues that are discussed here were entirely theoretical, it would still be prudent to be concerned about a centralized supragovernmental institution such as the EU having this much power regarding the internet and the websites we use every day. However, as with the banning of Russia Today from YouTube, which was due to allegations of disinformation and happened around the same time the EU placed sanctions on Russia Today, we can see that political considerations can and do lead to content being banned on these sites. We currently live in a world with an almost-infinite amount of information; due to this, it would be impossible for anyone or even any institution to sift through all the data surrounding any issue and to come up with a definitive “truth” on the subject, and this is assuming that said persons or institution is unbiased on the issue and approaching it in good faith, which is rarely the case.

All of us have ways of viewing the world that filter our understanding of issues even when we have the best intentions, not to mention the fact that supranational bodies such as the EU and the EU Commission have vested political incentives and are influenced by many lobbies, which may render their decisions regarding what is the “truth” and what is “disinformation” to be faulty at best and deliberately harmful at worst. All of this is to say that in general, none of us—not even the so-called experts—can claim to know everything regarding an issue enough to make a definitive statement as to what is true and what is disinformation, and this makes giving a centralized institution the power to constitute what the truth is a very dangerous thing.

The proponents of these EU regulations argue that bad-faith actors may use disinformation to deceive the public. There is obviously some truth in this; however, one could also argue that many different actors creating and arguing their own narrative with regard to what is happening around the world are preferable to a centralized institution controlling a unified narrative of what is to be considered the “truth.”

In my scenario, even if some people are “fooled” (even though to accurately consider people to be fooled, we would have to claim that we know the definitive truth regarding a multifaceted complex issue that can be viewed from many angles), the public will get to hear many narratives about what happened and can make up their own minds.

If this leads to people being fooled by bad-faith actors, it will never be the entirety of the population. Some people will be “fooled” by narrative A, some by narrative B, some by narrative C, and so forth. However, in the current case, if the EU is or ever becomes the bad-faith actor who uses its power to champion its own narrative for political purposes, it has the power to control and influence what the entirety of the public hears and believes with regard to an issue, and that is a much more dangerous scenario than the one that would occur if we simply let the so-called wars of information be waged. The concentration of power is something that we should always be concerned about, especially when it comes to power regarding information since information shapes what people believe, and what people believe changes everything.

Another important thing to note is that just because it is the EU that makes these regulations does not change the fact that it affects everyone in the world. After all, even if someone posts a video on YouTube from the United States or from Turkey, it will still face the same terms of service. Almost everyone in the world uses Google or Bing, and the EU has power over the recommendation algorithms of these search engines. This means that the EU has the power over what information most people see when they want to learn something from the internet. No centralized institution can be trusted with this much power.

One final issue of importance is the fact that the EU is investing in new technologies such as artificial intelligence programs to “tackle disinformation” and to check the veracity of content posted online. An important example of this is the InVID project, which is in its own words “a knowledge verification platform to detect emerging stories and assess the reliability of newsworthy video files and content spread via social media.”

If you are at all worried about the state of the internet as explained in this article, know that this potential development may lead to the EU doing all of the things described here in an even more “effective” manner in the future.

Does The CIA Run America?

  Yes, they do! Although in reality it is more complicated since power is shared between different powerful organisms but in the end, since they killed JFK in 1963 they do have access to presidential power.

  Here's a fantastic research by Francis Richard Connolly on the subject. A long documentary which has not been erased but is very difficult to find. (If you do not know the address or the name, "Everything is a rich man's trick", it doesn't appear on YouTube.)  Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oVpt_I9iQQ

  But let's look at it differently. Who believes Biden is presiding over anything at all beyond the flavor of his ice creams in Delaware? Blinken? Come on! If he was in charge, the Chinese would bother to talk to him! Obama? Possibly but then who is he working for? Hilary? Likely. Then again who for? In the end, all the paths lead to Langley, so yes, the CIA and other powerful "donors" are running the show.    

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

We’ve all surely had dark thoughts that the CIA is really running the United States, including many media venues. Maybe that’s been true for decades and we just didn’t know it. If so, let’s just say that it would explain a tremendous amount of what has otherwise been clouded in secrecy.

How would this be possible? Knowledge is power while secret knowledge is full control. Even fake knowledge means power and control, such as we found out in the phony Russiagate investigation early in Trump’s term. They hounded the new administration for years under a completely fake scenario in which Russia somehow got Donald Trump elected.

Yes, that was an intelligence operation all along, one directly designed to overthrow an election, a “color revolution” on our own soil.

How dare an agency not elected by the people, and evading oversight and public accountability, put itself ahead of the Constitution and the rule of law? It’s been going on for many decades as the agencies have gained ever more power, even to the point of forcing a full lockdown of America and even the world under false pretense.

None of this is verifiable precisely because of the secrecy involved. It’s not as if the intelligence community is going to send out a press release: “Democracy in America is an illusion. We know because we control nearly everything, plus we aspire to control even more.”

The incredulous among us will shoot back: look at what you are saying! Your conspiracy theory is non-falsifiable. The less evidence you have for it, the more you believe it. How in the world can we argue with you? Your position is not really plausible but there is nothing we can do to convince you otherwise.

Let’s grant the point. Still, let’s not dismiss the theory completely. Based on a New York Times (NYT) piece that appeared last week, it contains more than a grain of truth. The article is titled: “Campaign Puts Trump and the Spy Agencies on a Collision Course.”

Quote: “Even as president, Donald J. Trump flaunted his animosity for intelligence officials, portraying them as part of a politicized ‘deep state’ out to get him. And since he left office, that distrust has grown into outright hostility, with potentially serious implications for national security should he be elected again.”

Ok, let’s be clear. If the intelligence community led by the CIA is not the “deep state,” what is?

Further, it is proven many times over that the Deep State is in fact out to get him. This is not even controversial. Indeed, there is no reason for these journalists to write the above as if Donald Trump is somehow consumed by some kind of baseless paranoia.

Let’s keep going here: “Trump is now on a possible collision course with the intelligence community .... The result is a complicated and possibly destabilizing situation the United States has never seen before: deep-seated suspicion and disdain on the part of a former and perhaps future president toward the very people he would be relying on for the most sensitive information he would need to perform his role if elected again.”

Wait just a moment. You are telling us that all previous presidents have had a happy relationship with the CIA? That’s rather interesting to know. And deeply troubling too, since the CIA has been managing regime change the world over for a very long time, and is now directly involved in U.S. politics at the most intimate level.

Any president worth his salt should absolutely have a hostile relationship with such an agency, if only to establish clear civilian control over the government, without which it’s not possible to say that we live in a Constitutional republic.

And now, according to the NYT, we have one seeking the Presidency who does not defer to the agency and that this is destabilizing and deeply problematic. Who does that suggest really rules this country?

Is the NYT itself guilty of the most extreme conspiracy theory imaginable, or is it just stating facts as we know them? I’m going to guess that it is the latter. In this case, every single American should be deeply alarmed.

Crazy huh? As for the phrase “never seen before,” we have to push back. What about George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, and Calvin Coolidge? They were all previous presidents, according to the history books that people once read.

There was no CIA back then. If you doubt this, I’m pretty sure that your favorite AI engine will confirm it.

One must suppose that when the NYT says “never seen before,” it means in the post-war period. And that very well might be true. John F. Kennedy defied them. We know that for certain. The mysteries surrounding his murder won’t be solved fully until we get the documents. But the consensus is growing that this murder was really a coup by the CIA, a message sent as a lesson to every successor in that office.

Think of that: we live in a country today where most people readily admit that the CIA probably killed the president. Amazing.

It’s intriguing to know at this late date that the Watergate “scandal” was not what it appeared to be, namely an intrepid media holding government to account. Even astute observers at the time believed the mainstream narrative. Now we have plenty of evidence that this too was nothing but a deep state attack on a president who had lost patience with it and provoked another coup.

All credit to my brilliant father who speculated along these lines at the time. I was very young with only the vaguest clue about what was happening. But I recall very well that he was convinced that Richard Nixon was set up in a trap and unfairly hounded out of office not for the bad things he was doing but for standing up to the Deep State.

If my own father, not a particularly political person, knew this for certain at the time, this must have been a strong perception even then.

You hear the rap that these agencies—the CIA is one but there are many adjacent others—are not allowed by law to intervene in domestic politics. At this point and after so much experience, this comes across to me like something of a joke. We know from vast evidence and personal testimony that the CIA has been manipulating political figures, narratives, and outcomes for a very long time.

How involved is the CIA in journalism today? Well, as a traditionally liberal paper, you might suppose that the NYT itself would be highly skeptical of the CIA. But these days, they have published a long string of aggressively defensive articles with titles like “It Turns Out that the Deep State Is Awesome” and “Government Surveillance Keeps Us Safe.” We can add this last piece to the list.

So let’s just say it: the NYT is CIA. So too is Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Slate, Salon, and many other mainstream publications, including major tech companies like Google and Microsoft. The tentacles are everywhere and ever more obvious. Operation Mockingbird was just the beginning. The network is everywhere and the practice of manipulating the news is wholly normalized.

Once you start developing the ability to see the markings, you simply cannot unsee them, which is why people who think and write about this can come across as crackpot crazy after a while.

Have you considered that maybe the crackpots are exactly right? If so, shouldn’t we, at bare minimum, seek to support a Presidential candidate with a hostile relationship to the intelligence community?

Indeed, that ought to be a bare minimum standard of qualification. There is simply no way we can restore civilian control of government and constitutional government until this agency can be thoroughly reigned in or abolished completely.

Falling From Grace by Doug Casey

  For doom and gloom, it is hard to outdo Doug Casey with his well argumented long term vision. His point in a nutshell is that the current decline is systemic and cannot rolled back. I would tend to agree.

  To understand how the dollar hegemony was built over time, you can read the book of Michael Hudson: Super Imperialism. An economic masterpiece on a complex subject. https://www.pdfdrive.com/super-imperialism-the-origin-and-fundamentals-of-us-world-dominance-e175324507.html

Guest Post by Jeff Thomas

Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, “Empires fall from grace with alarming speed.”

Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it’s one that I’ve kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.

I’m from a British family, one that left the UK just as the British Empire was about to begin its decline. They expatriated to the “New World” to seek promise for the future.

As I’ve spent most of my life centred in a British colony – the Cayman Islands – I’ve had the opportunity to observe many British contract professionals who left the UK seeking advancement, which they almost invariably find in Cayman. Curiously, though, most returned to the UK after a contract or two, in the belief that the UK would bounce back from its decline, and they wanted to be on board when Britain “came back.”

This, of course, never happened. The US replaced the UK as the world’s foremost empire, and although the UK has had its ups and downs over the ensuing decades, it hasn’t returned to its former glory.

And it never will.

If we observe the empires of the world that have existed over the millennia, we see a consistent history of collapse without renewal. Whether we’re looking at the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, or any other that’s existed at one time, history is remarkably consistent: The decline and fall of any empire never reverses itself; nor does the empire return, once it’s fallen.

But of what importance is this to us today?

Well, today, the US is the world’s undisputed leading empire and most Americans would agree that, whilst it’s going through a bad patch, it will bounce back and might even be better than ever.

Not so, I’m afraid. All empires follow the same cycle. They begin with a population that has a strong work ethic and is self-reliant. Those people organize to form a nation of great strength, based upon high productivity.

This leads to expansion, generally based upon world trade. At some point, this gives rise to leaders who seek, not to work in partnership with other nations, but to dominate them, and of course, this is when a great nation becomes an empire. The US began this stage under the flamboyant and aggressive Teddy Roosevelt.

The twentieth century was the American century and the US went from victory to victory, expanding its power.

But the decline began in the 1960s, when the US started to pursue unwinnable wars, began the destruction of its currency and began to expand its government into an all-powerful body.

Still, this process tends to be protracted and the overall decline often takes decades.

So, how does that square with the quote, “Empires fall from grace with alarming speed”?

Well, the preparation for the fall can often be seen for a generation or more, but the actual fall tends to occur quite rapidly.

What happens is very similar to what happens with a schoolyard bully.

The bully has a slow rise, based upon his strength and aggressive tendency. After a number of successful fights, he becomes first revered, then feared. He then takes on several toadies who lack his abilities but want some of the spoils, so they do his bidding, acting in a threatening manner to other schoolboys.

The bully then becomes hated. No one tells him so, but the other kids secretly dream of his defeat, hopefully in a shameful manner.

Then, at some point, some boy who has a measure of strength and the requisite determination has had enough and takes on the bully.

If he defeats him, a curious thing happens. The toadies suddenly realise that the jig is up and they head for the hills, knowing that their source of power is gone.

Also, once the defeated bully is down, all the anger, fear and hatred that his schoolmates felt for him come out, and they take great pleasure in his defeat.

And this, in a nutshell, is what happens with empires.

A nation that comes to the rescue in times of genuine need (such as the two World Wars) is revered. But once that nation morphs into a bully that uses any excuse to invade countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, its allies may continue to bow to it but secretly fear it and wish that it could be taken down a peg.

When the empire then starts looking around for other nations to bully, such as Iran and Venezuela, its allies again say nothing but react with fear when they see the John Boltons and Mike Pompeos beating the war drums and making reckless comments.

At present, the US is focusing primarily on economic warfare, but if this fails to get the world to bend to its dominance, the US has repeatedly warned, regarding possible military aggression, that “no option is off the table.”

The US has reached the classic stage when it has become a reckless bully, and its support structure of allies has begun to de-couple as a result.

At the same time that allies begin to pull back and make other plans for their future, those citizens within the empire who tend to be the creators of prosperity also begin to seek greener pastures.

History has seen this happen countless times. The “brain drain” occurs, in which the best and most productive begin to look elsewhere for their future. Just as the most productive Europeans crossed the Pond to colonise the US when it was a new, promising country, their present-day counterparts have begun moving offshore.

The US is presently in a state of suspended animation. It still appears to be a major force, but its buttresses are quietly disappearing. At some point in the near future, it’s likely that the US government will overplay its hand and aggress against a foe that either is stronger or has alliances that, collectively, make it stronger.

The US will be entering into warfare at a time when it’s broke, and this will become apparent suddenly and dramatically. The final decline will occur with alarming speed.

When this happens, the majority of Americans will hope in vain for a reverse of events. They’ll be inclined to hope that, if they collectively say, “Whoops, we goofed,” the world will be forgiving, returning them to their former glory.

But historically, this never occurs. Empires fall with alarming speed, because the support systems that made them possible have decamped and have become reinvigorated elsewhere.

Rather than mourn the loss of empire that’s on the horizon, we’d be better served if we focus instead on those parts of the world that are likely to benefit from this inevitability.

Editor’s Note: Socialist ideas are becoming increasingly popular in the US. At the same time the US government is printing money hand over fist. All while the US empire continues to overstretch itself across the world.

It’s all shaping up to be a world-class disaster… one unlike anything we’ve seen before. That’s exactly why New York Times bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released an urgent video showing how it all could go down. Click here to watch it now.

Biden’s Dollar Weaponization – Growing Backlash Could Kill the Economy

  It took over 50 years to build the dollar as the all powerful hegemonic, central (to the world exchange and trading system) money it has become. Can the bidden administration kill it in just 5 years? 

  We are most certainly on this path. I expect a major shock in 2024 and pandemonium in 2025. War is likely but even if we can wait a little longer, a complete financial mess is looming over the horizon. 

  And it's not just the Biden Administration. Trump has said a few days ago, specifically, that he would punish countries who do not trade in dollar! How more hegemonic can you be? 

  Good luck with that! Such statements will not slow down the trickle away from the dollar, it will open a flood!

From Peter Reagan for Birch Gold Group

President Biden’s decision to participate in the Ukraine-Russia conflict back in February 2022 has taken a new and dangerous turn this year.

The U.S. dollar could suffer dramatically as a result.

Before we explore that new development, we’re going to start by quickly summarizing some of the events that led the United States to this point.

Let’s begin…

In the February 28th, 2022 issue of Matt Levine’s Money Stuff column for Bloomberg, Levine wrote about the sanctions placed on Russia:

the U.S., the European Union, the U.K., Switzerland, Singapore and other countries announced harsh sanctions against Russia for its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. There are a lot of these sanctions – banning Russian flights through European airspace, limiting Russian banks’ access to the SWIFT interbank messaging system, etc. – but the most drastic might be U.S., U.K. and EU bans on any transactions with the Russian central bank. The bulk of Russia’s foreign reserves are held in the form of securities, deposits at other central banks and deposits at foreign commercial banks. A ban on transactions with Russia’s central bank means that it can’t sell those securities or access those deposits. Its foreign currency reserves turned out to be mostly useless.

As is the case with most geopolitical conflicts, there is always a lot more to the story than gets reported in the mainstream media (Russian, U.S., or otherwise). For example, some of the history behind the current conflict actually dates back to 2014.

Nonetheless, the bottom line is that the financial sanctions placed on Russia in 2022 were supposed to have a severe impact on Russia’s economy.

Unfortunately, for President Biden and NATO allies…

Russia shrugs off brutal sanctions

If the sanctions placed on Russia in 2022 had their intended effect, Russia’s economy would’ve been wrecked, set back 30 years or more. It would’ve become a third-world country by now.

But that hasn’t happened. Russia has prospered despite those sanctions.

A revealing NPR interview shed light on some of the economic impacts, as of December 2023:

Russia has been hit with huge economic sanctions since it invaded Ukraine nearly two years ago. But the Russian economy has remained strong, defying many economists’ expectations.

Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at Carnegie Eurasia Center, explained:

Economic growth in Russia in 2023 is likely to exceed 3%. It is – in terms of figures, I mean, it’s great. It’s more than the economy of the United Kingdom or of Germans’ economy. So what’s behind these figures is that over a third of this growth is attributed to the war economy, where defense-related industries are flourishing at double-digit rates.

Now, it makes sense that war would boost military and defense-related industries. But Russia’s economy also doesn’t appear to be suffering much.

In fact, according to Bloomberg, Russia’s economy is actually at risk of overheating.

Even left-leaning think tanks can’t do much more than wag their fingers and exclaim “just you wait”:

Russia’s economy is now stable both in spite of and as a result of Western sanctions…

Russia’s economy could begin to see major challenges in the next year-and-a-half, think tank researchers write.

Just like Bidenomics! “Sure, it’s not working yet, but it will eventually, any day now…”

Nonsense. Russia’s currency, GDP, and banks are thriving:

The ruble is steady at about 92:1 (compare this to Biden’s claims from 2022 that “the ruble will be rubble”). Russia’s debt-to-GDP level is 17.2%, compared with the U.S. level of 131.0%. Russian bank profits for 2024 are projected to exceed the record profits in 2023.

In other words, Russia’s economy is outperforming the U.S. by almost every measure, and is doing so on a more sustainable level from a debt perspective.

So, let’s take stock…

Two years after these shock-and-awe sanctions intended to pressure Russia into ending its invasion of Ukraine:

• Russia’s economy is outperforming not only the U.S. but also NATO allies (including the UK’s, Germany’s etc.)
• The embargo on Russian oil by the West had zero impact on Russian exports
• Russia’s defense and military industries are booming (talk about unintended consequences!)

Don’t misunderstand! I’m no fan of Vladimir Putin.

But I’m also not a fan of the Biden administration’s half-baked plan to teach Russia a lesson. It’s a total failure.

At this point, a rational person would assess the situation, look at the data and make a new plan.

Never one to learn from his mistakes, President Biden has instead opened a new front in his financial war on Russia.

This time, though, I’m seriously concerned he’s gone too far…

“This is outright theft”

Thanks to a recently passed piece of legislation, the Biden administration plans to take control of Russia’s frozen assets.

Rickards provided a nice summary:

The House passed the “REPO Act” this weekend, which authorizes the administration to seize about $20 billion worth of Russian assets sitting in U.S. banks, mostly Treasury securities. It would then transfer that money to Ukraine.

The securities were legally purchased by Russia using dollars earned through the sale of oil prior to the war. They were frozen in early 2022. That means the securities are still legally owned by Russia, but they can’t be sold or pledged, and Russia can’t receive the interest or cash at maturity.

But this legislation goes one step further and authorizes the actual seizure of these assets. This is outright theft and a violation of the Sovereign Immunities Act, but no one seems to care about that.

We’ve discussed dollar weaponization repeatedly over the last couple of years.

This development is next-level.

Freezing assets is bad enough – but seizing those legally-purchased assets? In violation of all international law?

That’s the act of an autocrat. Which is exactly what Biden calls Putin.

Is this a good idea? Probably not. Russia already can’t get its hands on those assets. So how does stealing them make Russia’s situation worse?

It doesn’t!

Instead, what it does accomplish (again, unintended consequences) is send a message to the rest of the world.

It’s not a hopeful message.

Are dollars assets? Or liabilities?

In today’s financialized world, most financial assets are based on debt. They’re promises to pay. As Ray Dalio recently reminded us:

…the dollar, to a lesser extent the euro, to a much lesser extent the yen, and to an even lesser extent the Chinese renminbi… are held in debt assets – i.e., they are debt-backed money—i.e., currency = debt. In other words, when you hold these monies, you are holding debt liabilities, which are promises to deliver you money.

The REPO Act has broken this promise to deliver money.

Which begs the question: What if central banks start to view dollars as a liability rather than an asset?

This Wall Street Journal article shows that economists were already grappling with this question back in 2022:

Recent events highlight the error in this thinking: Barring gold, these assets are someone else’s liability – someone who can just decide they are worth nothing…

What can investors do? For once, the old trope may not be ill advised: buy gold. Many of the world’s central banks will surely be doing it.

Indeed, 2022 was the biggest year for central bank gold-buying in history.

2023 was a close second-place, coming in just 4% below the previous year’s record.

The lesson is quite clear. What we think of as assets can become liabilities overnight.