The algorithm is manipulating you

 

We've all read warnings and horror stories about how algorithms are analyzing our online behavior and trying to steer us to their products, their channels, their platforms.  Thing is, it's a very real danger, and it's getting worse.  EKO provides this perspective.  I highly recommend reading the whole of the excerpt below, and watching both video clips.

let’s start here with something seemingly innocent, the budweiser ad from the superbowl.

in the primary signalling sphere of “positioning and product” this represents a profound volte face from the recent bud light echo chamber brand self-immolation fiascos, a return to images of growth and aspiration and rippling pride.

it’s a great ad. if you have not encountered it, see for yourself. experience it.

ok. got that?

it’s practically cinema, right? a story of friendship and coming of age and of becoming.

it’s got it all.

it’s moving stuff.

but it also has something you probably did not see, a meta game beneath the game where the real magic trick is taking place at a deeper neurological level, a firmware level cheat code to which the human mind has very little access.

let’s explore:

now watch this video.  [The critical bit comes from about 1m. 40sec. onward;  skip ahead to that point if you wish.]

now watch the budweiser ad again. see how they took this exact fractionation strategy and amplified and optimized it took you up, down, up, down, rain, protect, strive, fail, leap, fly, power chords, free bird, aaaaaaaand beer ad.

they boiled this whole concatenation down to its most bare bones, essential elements and ran a whole suggestability enhancement procession in a one minute experience.

i would wager they knew that.

i will also bet you that it has sold absolute truckloads of beer.

but this is not the scary part.

we, as humans, are used to ads. we know what they are for and embed a certain skepticism. OK, so maybe we buy a few more brewskis, but whatever, this is hardly the stuff of civilizational threat.

but you have to start stepping back to see the rest of the picture.

social media has become a barrage of short form information, increasingly video driven and increasingly exposed to savagely intense evolutionary stressors. the currency of online is attention. it’s time. twitter speaks of "maximizing unregretted user-seconds." this is what that means. it means “how can i get you to watch more of this and to want to watch more of this?”

keep in mind that algorithms are psychopaths. they have no theory of your well being that factors into this sort of optimization. it’s just “keep the typewriter monkey happy and online.” and every outlet is locked in the same arms race so no one gets to opt out. those who do not play this way get left behind and the user seconds go somewhere else.

there’s a worrying parallel to what happened with US food companies. they did not set out to create travesties of sugar and salt and over-amped artificiality, but as they experimented with it, they saw that people bought more. the feedback loop of “people will eat more froot loops than fruit” was obvious on revenue lines and if you do that for too long, pretty soon customers basically cannot even taste wholesome food anymore. it’s not enough of a dopamine hit.

media is the same.

what started as an inevitable game to maximize user time and click through rates has becomes somehting altogether other, a monster in the depths that cannot be seen, only felt as its machinations twist minds and demolish perspective.

There's more at the link.

It's almost diabolically clever, isn't it?  The thing is, it works.  It works so well that every single major player in the news media, social media, advertising and the entertainment industry is using it against us every single day.  So are politicians, from both sides of the aisle and everywhere else in the public sector.  We aren't being respected as individuals.  We're sheep to be shorn, votes to be manipulated, suckers to be fed pablum in exchange for our dollars and unthinking loyalty.

Remember that.  We're all being manipulated daily.  It takes sustained effort and really hard work to break free from that cycle and recognize it for what it is.

Peter

"The bottom line is simple: we’re already divided in everything but name."

 

That's the punch line to a recent article by Restricted Daily on X.  I think it makes good sense, although it doesn't offer solutions.  I think it's important enough that I'm going to re-publish it here in full, hoping that the author of Restricted Daily will permit that.

We keep pretending this is just another rough chapter in American politics, but deep down everyone knows that’s a lie. This isn’t disagreement anymore. This is disillusion. This is two completely different nations trapped inside the same borders, pretending we share values when we don’t. The Declaration of Independence was written when people finally admitted they could no longer coexist under a system that no longer represented them. That same feeling is back, whether people want to admit it or not.

We don’t argue over tax rates or road funding anymore. We argue over reality itself. Over biology. Over speech. Over history. Over whether borders matter. Over whether personal responsibility even exists. One side believes the country should be preserved, protected, and handed down stronger to the next generation. The other believes it should be dismantled, reprogrammed, and endlessly apologized for. You cannot reconcile those worldviews. You can only delay the inevitable by pretending compromise still exists.

Every election now feels like an existential threat, not a policy debate. Every law feels like an act of force instead of representation. People don’t feel governed anymore, they feel ruled. And when a large portion of the population feels that way for long enough, the social contract is already broken. You can wave flags and sing songs all you want, but unity doesn’t come from slogans. It comes from shared beliefs, and those are gone.

The truth nobody wants to say out loud is this: forcing people who fundamentally despise each other to live under one federal system is not unity. It’s pressure. And pressure always finds a release. History doesn’t care about feelings. Empires don’t fall because people stop loving them, they fall because they stop believing in them. When laws feel illegitimate and elections feel meaningless, separation stops sounding radical and starts sounding logical.

Maybe it’s not about hate. Maybe it’s about honesty. About admitting that the experiment has split into incompatible outcomes. About recognizing that peaceful separation is better than perpetual cultural warfare, political revenge cycles, and a federal government that half the country views as hostile. Coexistence requires mutual respect, and that left the room a long time ago.

You can call it the Declaration of Disillusion. You can call it dissolution. You can call it whatever you want. But pretending we can duct tape this together forever is the real fantasy. The bottom line is simple: we’re already divided in everything but name. The only question left is whether we keep lying to ourselves, or finally have the courage to admit it.

I fear the author is correct.  I don't see how we can restore unity to a nation so far divided as ours has become.  It's a lot more difficult than during the American Civil War of the 19th century, because there are many issues dividing us, not just one central debate.  Furthermore, we don't have neatly divided states:  we have representatives from multiple perspectives in every state.  Big cities tend to be "blue", smaller towns and rural areas tend more towards "red", but overall the states are "purple" - and I don't see any practical way of satisfying all the blended colors in our present political melange.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Jesus Christ said that.  Abraham Lincoln made it the focus of his famous "house divided" speech almost two millennia later.  It's as true today as it's ever been.  Unless we find a way to bridge the gaps between us - and I have no idea what that way might be - our house, our nation, is probably going to fall.

Peter

Population collapse threatens China - perhaps much more, and much sooner, than we think

 

A few days ago, the New York Post published an article headlined "China is facing a demographic bomb— and it could handcuff Beijing’s ambitions".  Here's an excerpt.

Last week, Beijing’s release of China’s national birth count for 2025 left demographers stunned.

The national birth total plummeted by over 17% from 2024 to 2025, the PRC disclosed.

That sort of precipitous drop is almost never seen in stable modern societies, where births tend to inch up or down from one year to the next.

A decline of this magnitude qualifies as a demographic shock of the sort typically associated with dire calamities like famine or plague — a sign that a disaster or convulsion is taking place.

And these are only the latest readings from the astonishing birth crash that’s commenced under Xi Jinping’s rule: a drop by over half in just eight years that shows no sign as yet of abating.

Tumbling birth rates have already thrown China into depopulation, with over four deaths for every three births in 2025.

With fewer than 8 million new babies in 2025, China is not only down to the lowest level of natality since the Communists took power in 1949.

It’s actually back to birth levels last seen three centuries ago, in the early 1700s, when the national population may have been no more than 225 million — less than a sixth of China’s current 1.4 billion.

. . .

If this continues, the next generation of Chinese will be only be 44% as large as their parents’ cohort — and the following generation will be smaller still.

There's more at the link.  It's worth reading the article in full.

That news was bad enough, from China's perspective.  However, it may be a whole lot worse.  Yesterday I came across a Web site called "Lei's Real Talk".  She's a Chinese lady living in the USA who analyzes events and developments in China, and has developed quite a large following.  I know nothing more about her than what she says on her Web site, but she presents carefully thought out and cogent analysis of China's real population in the video clip below.  The kicker?

She thinks China's population might already be a third to a half less than what it officially claims.

If that's true, it makes the warnings in the article above even more ominous.  See for yourself.  This is well worth watching, and listening carefully.

If Lei's claims are true, they provide an entirely new perspective on China's aggressive words and policies directed against other countries and alliances.  They might be no more than bluff and bluster, demographically speaking . . . might.  We won't know for sure unless and until Lei's calculations can be confirmed in some way.

Nevertheless, it's enough to make one think, isn't it?

Peter

Minneapolis and Minnesota: a "color revolution" in the making

 

Some readers may not be familiar with the term "color revolution".  American Thinker outlined the concept in an article last December.

A“color revolution” ... is a modern form of orchestrated political upheaval designed to replace an existing government without traditional military invasion or civil war ... These operations follow a remarkably consistent playbook, refined over two decades by Western NGOs, intelligence-linked foundations, and State Department-affiliated entities (Open Society Foundations, USAID, etc.).

Authors describe seven stages of a color revolution. The stages include these tactics, which I’ll list in approximate chronological order:

• Portray the target government as illegitimate, authoritarian, corrupt, or “fascist.”
• Front-load allegations: accuse incumbent of planning the crimes the opposition intends to commit (rigging, regression, dictatorship).
• Fund and train NGOs, student groups, and opposition politicians to repeat a unified message.
• Create/amplify a unifying symbol or theme (e.g., Orange Man Bad).
• Manufacture an electoral crisis.
• Street mobilization.
• Public appeals to and moral blackmail of the military and police: “You’re with the people, not the regime.”
• Promises of immunity, future positions for defectors.
• Threats to those who support target government.
• Provoke a response, flood media with images of “peaceful protesters” being attacked.
• International legitimation as foreign governments and media recognizes opposition leaders as “legitimate” authority.
• Sanctions, frozen assets, diplomatic isolation applied to sitting government.
• New elections scheduled under international supervision.

There's more at the link.  Notable examples of color revolutions may be found in the so-called "Arab Spring" uprisings, the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia in 2003, the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004/5, and a number of others.  Not all of the factors listed above were present in all the color revolutions, but most of them made multiple appearances.

A noteworthy common factor is that external (i.e. foreign) non-governmental organizations (NGO's) were involved in organizing and supporting almost all color revolutions over the past two to three decades.  Most of those NGO's were left-wing or progressive in orientation, and appear again and again in multiple uprisings.  Keep that in mind as we consider the current uprisings in Minneapolis and Minnesota.

The situation in Minneapolis right now is clearly an organized uprising against the enforcement of US immigration law by ICE.  It shows many of the signs of a typical color revolution in the making.  It is not random or haphazard:  it is professionally planned and executed, and run very like a military operation by its organizers.  As evidence, consider:

• The far-left network that helped put Alex Pretti in harm's way, then made him a martyr
• "What’s unfolding in Minneapolis right now isn’t 'protest'. It’s low-level insurgency infrastructure, built by people who’ve clearly studied the playbook."
• "Look at the training 'MN Ice Watch' (which Renee Good belonged to) gives"
• Left-Wing Activists Run Shadow Police Force On Signal To Target ICE In Minneapolis
• What The Left Doesn't Want You To Know About Alex Pretti, The Man That Border Patrol Shot

I could post many similar links, but those above contain all the important information you'll need to make your own judgment.  If you're in any doubt about what I say here, follow them for yourself and learn the truth.

Next, keep in mind that violence against ICE is not widespread.  As Kevin Bass points out (his methodology is here), a mere nine counties (out of 3,143 in the entire USA!) have produced two-thirds of all such incidents over the past year.  Click the image below for a larger view.

That's hardly the widespread violence and unrest that the progressive left (and its lackeys in the mainstream news media) are trying to portray, is it?  That shows very clearly where the left is most organized and active.  However, they're bringing activists into those places from all over the country, not just to help their protests, but to learn from them how to do it and then "export" similar unrest to other cities around America.  Be prepared for that.

It's also clear that the anti-ICE demonstrations are attempting to divert attention away from the massive fraud uncovered in Minnesota's Somali community, and in which a large number of Minnesota's political figures are apparently implicated.  Prof. Glenn Reynolds says this.

The state’s Democratic political machine is reacting like a spooked squid to revelations that the machine and its clients are complicit in multi-billion-dollar frauds against the federal government.

And the “ink” being squirted is the not-at-all spontaneous wave of riots erupting against federal authorities in Minneapolis.

. . .

The House Oversight Committee this month found that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and state Attorney General Keith Ellison were not innocent bystanders to the fraud, but actually took part in the cover-up, taking active steps to silence whistleblowers.

And it all centered on communities of illegal immigrants and refugees, some of whose members siphoned money from federal taxpayers and in turn gave campaign contributions and political support to state Democrats — a self-licking ice cream cone of graft.

. . .

These are not spontaneous uprisings of the aggrieved, but organized actions featuring out-of-state actors and organizations, detailed training programs for demonstrators, and large amounts of intentionally murky funding from organizations like Indivisible, George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and others.

They’re coordinating their anti-ICE operations — identifying, chasing and blocking agents to keep them from arresting illegal-immigrant criminals — through highly organized chat groups on Signal, a secure communications platform, Fox News reported.

And Minnesota government officials are proudly touting their involvement in this coordination ... That’s making these often violent, deliberately obstructive demonstrations look less like a civil rights sit-in and more like a government-backed insurrection.

. . .

Whatever investigators determine about how Pretti’s death unfolded, the fact remains that a cynical and corrupt political machine has fostered for its own purposes a situation that’s dangerous for its own supporters, and for the political future of our nation.

There's more at the link.

As a human being, I'm deeply saddened by the deaths of Renée Good and Alexander Pretti in Minneapolis.  May their sins be forgiven them, and may they rest in peace:  and may their families receive what comfort is possible.

HOWEVER . . .

Let us not forget that both died while actively interfering with law enforcement personnel in the execution of their duties, in situations where tempers and emotions were running high, and where misunderstandings in the heat of the moment could readily be foreseen and expected.  In both shootings, it is possible that the law enforcement officers concerned over-reacted to visual stimuli that - under the stress and tension of the circumstances - they did not have time to adequately process.  On the other hand, the actions of the victims actively contributed to that stress and tension, and therefore they were at the very least not blameless in their deaths.

It is also possible - although yet to be determined by legal process - that the shootings were justifiable under the laws and jurisprudence governing the conduct of the law enforcement personnel concerned.  Until all the facts emerge, and can be evaluated by competent authorities and ruled upon in court, I won't attempt to assign blame.  I could wish that others would be slower to judge, and be willing to wait for all the facts to come out.  By failing to do so, they're inciting and inviting further violence and bloodshed - which is, of course, exactly what some of them appear to want.

What is now effectively beyond doubt is that both Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti died as part of an uprising against the constitution and laws of the United States of America.  It's no good denying that - the evidence (as cited and provided above) is clear.  The ultimate responsibility for their deaths sits squarely at the door of those who planned, instigated and organized this unrest.  I can only hope that they will be called to account for it.

Peter

Quick post-storm update, and preliminary thoughts on Minneapolis unrest

 

The world outside is blanketed with a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain, which have combined to bed down into a 3" to 4" thick layer over everything.  One can walk on it if one's careful about one's balance, but put a foot wrong and it's slip slidin' away . . .

I won't go out today, because with my spine injury, balance is sometimes hard to maintain - and I don't want to have to call for an ambulance while lying in that icy, snowy blanket on the ground!  My wife has had to go to work, but it's only a couple of miles from here, and she's from Alaska!  She's been grinning broadly at all the complaints from locals about how snowed-in we are, and how difficult it is to drive, and so on.  Needless to say, her comparisons between here and Alaska have been great fun!  She should have no trouble driving to work and back.

I guess readers in the north-east are still getting the snow, sleet and freezing rain that left here a day or two ago.  Stay safe up there, please.  I know you're more used to this than we are, but Mother Nature is still a stone cold bitch who'll kill you at the drop of a hat (and sometimes drop it herself, if she's feeling that way inclined).

I've had a few e-mails asking me why I'm not commenting at greater length on the situation in Minneapolis right now.  Three points:

1. The 72-hour rule applies:  wait three days for the details to be established before you say something that might not be accurate.  I'll write about it tomorrow.
2. There's so much organization and purpose behind the civil unrest in Minneapolis that it qualifies as an insurrection, by any classical definition you choose.  This is not an angry public protesting - it's an organized militant group playing on public emotions and manipulating many (most?) of the protesters.  It's also a very clear attempt by the Minneapolis/Minnesota authorities to divert attention from the immense fraud perpetrated upon the people of Minnesota by criminal elements, including some of those authorities.  There's a lot more to come out about all that.
3. I am deeply, deeply concerned about the ruthlessness and purposefulness of the organizers behind these protests.  They remind me of the unrest in Southern states prior to the Civil war - think attacks on state militia troops passing through Baltimore, the Southern seizure of Federal property, and firing on a Federal installation.  As Divemedic (rightly, in my opinion) warns:  "At this point, we are closer to a Civil War than we have been in more than 60 years."

Pray for peace, but prepare for this uprising in case it spreads to your area.  If you live in a large city (particularly with left-wing politics) or anywhere nearby, that goes double for you.

Peter

The lighter side of ICE operations

 

Supporters of ICE operations against illegal aliens, and of President Trump's policies towards them, seem to be enjoying themselves.  Click the first or second link in this sentence to go to the social media posts concerned.

As my friend Lawdog would say, Gigglesnort!

Peter

Minnesota: Both sides are caught on the horns of a dilemma

 

Keep a careful eye on Minneapolis.  Things are getting bad enough there that they remind me of the virtual civil war that reigned for months in some of South Africa's worst-hit areas during the last years of apartheid.  The radicals on the left are trying to force the issue - and it can only be a matter of time before radicals on the right respond in kind.  As Rod Dreher points out:

Things are fast getting out of control in Minnesota. Leftist mobs are going after innocent people they think might be pro-ICE — including a tourist driving a rental car with Texas plates. The mob figured Texas plates surely must belong to an ICE agent. State and local authorities there have put themselves openly against federal law enforcement. It’s as if they’re all but begging Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act — and you know, if all this isn’t an insurrection, what is it?

What these fools don’t understand is that things like invading and disrupting a church service compels many Christians and others, who might have been doubtful about the Trump administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, to rush towards Trump for protection from the mob. They are hardening sides. Frankly, I hope the feds swoop in with force and start mass arrests, starting with Don Lemon. Again: the protesters crossed a bright red line yesterday in going into that church.

This is how civil wars start. I’m serious. Here is a clip of an anti-ICE leftist standing on the streets of Minneapolis with a rifle in hand, ready for civil war. He says he’s standing on his block “to protect my people.” OK, but is he ready for Christian men to stand around the perimeter of their churches, with rifles, to protect their people?

There's more at the link.

The trouble is, the radical left wants that sort of confrontation.  They're doing all they can to provoke it.  They'd like nothing better than for President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, because then they could proclaim that it proves he was what they've called him all along - a fascist, a Nazi, another Hitler.  Eko explains:

January 15, 2026. Tore Says monitors document simultaneous Zoom calls across every major activist network in the United States. Sunrise Movement. Federal employee resistance groups. Military reservist networks. Senior Executive Service officials. Antifa organizers. Ideologically opposed groups, different platforms, never having worked together publicly.

Jake broadcasts intent to burn a Quran to provoke the left.

Pink broadcasts alerts about an “anti-Muslim rally” to mobilize the Left.

They both specify the exact time. They both name the location.

On the surface, they are enemies. In the intelligence chatter, they are the same network. One operative amplifies the threat. The other provides the violence. Two hands of the same foreign-funded clock.

Every Zoom call Tore documented discussed the same objective: create sufficient unrest that the president invokes the Insurrection Act.

Upper-level conversations revealed specific instructions.

    1. Stage provocations at mosques.
    2. Arm counter-protesters.
    3. Ensure cameras capture everything.
    4. Coordinate media amplification across all platforms.

Then further instructions surfaced:

Promote the Insurrection Act subversively through conservative outlets. Embed in right-wing media. Make supporters demand the mechanism that will remove Trump.

The Left creates chaos to force federal crackdown.

The Right demands emergency powers thinking they’ll crush the opposition.

The synthesis advances through the collision. The moment Trump invokes the Act to restore order, the narrative locks. He becomes the strongman they warned about for a decade. Every news chyron, every influencer post, every talking head will say the same thing: You see? He IS the dictator.

The truth is irrelevant. Perception is the verdict. The justification for his removal is written by his own signature.

. . .

The timeline

    Day 1: Deployment orders. Media goes 24/7 crisis mode.
    Day 3: First judicial injunction filed. International condemnation starts.
    Day 7: Cabinet members leaking concerns to press.
    Day 10: Congressional emergency hearings announced.
    Day 14: 25th Amendment whispers in mainstream coverage.
    Day 21: Politically radioactive. Legally cornered.

Three weeks. That’s the window from finally crushing them to removing him for instability.

There won’t be time to organize. To protest. To vote.

By the time we realize the mistake, he is gone and the emergency powers are permanent.

. . .

They have called us fascist for eight years. Violent insurrectionists. Threats to democracy.

Now they engineer the conditions where we demand authoritarian powers. Where we cheer military force. Where we justify emergency rule.

They are making us become the thing they accused us of being.

Take the bait and the soul of this movement is gone. We become their lie.

This is spiritual war.

Our grievances are legitimate. The solution being sold is our suicide.

Again, more at the link.  I highly recommend that you read the whole thing.

Friends, the radical Left is not interested in compromise (except as a short-term tactic while they prepare their next attack).  They aren't interested in placebos or palliatives or politicians' pablum.  They will gouge and chip away at the established order until they've disestablished it - which will be their excuse to mount an all-out takeover bid, probably invoking the 25th Amendment.  Democrat representatives in Congress and the Senate will be joined by RINO's, and even if they get only a razor-thin majority in both Houses, that's all they need.  If they do, it's a very short step to taking over both Houses in the November 2026 elections, and blocking the rest of the Trump agenda permanently.

Think it's impossible?  I don't.  There's a legal, legislative, judicial and constitutional minefield dead ahead.  Any knee-jerk reaction by the right (particularly an armed, violent reaction) will lead us right into it.  We have to emphasize the rule of law, while recognizing that some aspects of that might be more of a problem to us than a solution to the current situation.  It's a very fine line to walk.

Peter

I agree

 

As regular readers will know, I have literally decades of experience in environments of civil unrest, terrorism, and societal conflict, ranging from more-or-less peaceful demonstrations right through to the worst terrorist acts you can imagine.  I'm frequently astonished at the complacency and ignorance of people who think that "It can't happen here!"  I assure you, it most certainly can.

The expatriate American living in the Philippines, blogging at Come And Make It, appears to understand the reality of our situation, from a different-but-similar perspective.

There was a noticeable lag—roughly a year—[in Iraq after the war] between the collapse of central authority and the full emergence of widespread insurgency.

I see troubling parallels in the United States today. We're in that uneasy "lag" phase: deep instability is already here, with large numbers of people armed and ideologically primed for violence, yet most still hesitate to cross the line into open, sustained conflict. Instead, we see the precursors: fireworks thrown as provocations, screaming crowds, disruptive "stupid games," and tantrum-like escalations when people don't get their way. These are the behaviors of spoiled children testing boundaries.

So far, it's mostly individuals or small groups acting out. But the pattern is clear: one or two incidents beget more, then more still, until the tipping point arrives—and suddenly we have IEDs on interstate highways, coordinated attacks, and true insurgency.

A great deal of money—funneled from foreign governments, wealthy donors, and outside interests—has been poured into inflaming divisions, arming radicals, and eroding trust in institutions. These investments are designed to create exactly this kind of volatile tinderbox.

We are now one stray footstep away from triggering an avalanche of violence that could be very difficult to stop once it starts.

There's more at the link.

I warned earlier this month that the unrest being fomented over ICE and illegal aliens is reminiscent of the artificially-whipped-up demonstrations over George Floyd's death in 2020.  It seems many others agree.  See, for example:

• Minneapolis ICE Shooting Shows Left Wing's Protest Industrial Complex Wants Another 'George Floyd'-Type Riot
• The horns of the ICE dilemma (recommended reading)
• Stumbling Towards A New Civil War

See also the links provided in my earlier article.

El Gato Malo provides this succinct assessment.  Note:  he eschews capitals in his articles.

the "activists" they pay to run around trying to stop ICE are just upping the ante and taking even more unreasonable actions to try to protect the original incursions.

and they are creating incredibly dangerous situations.

on purpose and as a matter of policy.

and when you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.

this issue is being used to try to drive an irreconcilable social fracture.

it’s being managed like an insurgency in the same city that keeps spawning these (and whose governor and congressional rep (this took place in omar’s district) both look like they’re about to get indicted for massive corruption around immigrants they flooded the area with to sway voting.)

it’s more than a little curious how these folks were all so ready for this within hours.

there is coordination here.

. . .

there’s an actual insurgency being run here by the same political junta that caused the immigration mess.

but this is not going to be 2020. you can feel the national mood turning. people have had enough of being held hostage by these out of control hysteria cohorts.

and at a certain point, you stop trying to convince and realize that you’re basically just at war over a set of fully unreconcilable worldviews.

Again, more at the link.

Note the last sentence above.  It's true.  No reconciliation is possible between the two sides of the illegal alien debate.  One side sees it as a fundamental threat to what it has always meant to be an American.  The other side sees it as a wedge issue to redefine what it means to be an American.

Rudyard Kipling put it well, in a different context:

East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet

That's what we have here - and unless sanity and facts prevail over emotions and feelings, it's going to get much, much worse, more quickly than most of us can imagine.

Peter

Minneapolis has been planning its insurrection for a long time

 

Through a couple of links on the Internet, I came across this tweet from Insurrection Barbie.  I've checked out some of the references she gave, and they're legitimate.  I'm going to reproduce it in full here, because I think it deserves the widest circulation.

Minnesota has spent years building an infrastructure of ICE watch patrols, NGO backed rapid response teams, and politically wired nonprofits that can flip from ordinary life to street mobilization in minutes. 

The key to Minnesota’s rapid mobilization is not Twitter activism. It is an on the ground surveillance and response network that local reporters have already documented in detail. A Star Tribune investigation into the “organized resistance to ICE” in Minnesota reads like a field manual for modern grassroots intelligence operations.​

In south Minneapolis, volunteers spend hours driving what they openly call ICE patrols. Phones are mounted on dashboards. Every sighting of a suspicious SUV, every cluster of federal jackets, is recorded and dropped into Signal and WhatsApp groups that run silently in the background of daily life.​

Those chats are not small. A single Spanish language group described by local reporting grew from a few dozen members to hundreds as the federal crackdown began. One message that ICE is at a gas station, grocery store, or apartment complex can draw a crowd in minutes.​

Volunteers position themselves near schools, mosques, and high risk housing, phones ready. Their job is to film, warn, and, when they choose, physically interpose themselves between agents and targets.​

When roughly 2,000 federal agents arrive in a region that has spent years quietly building an anti enforcement machine, confrontation is not a question of if but when. 

The sequence looks like this:

• ICE surge and visible raids trigger heightened patrols and chat activity.
• A lethal incident happens. Video, rumors, and initial reports hit group chats and local media at the same time.
• ICE watch networks push urgent alerts, including locations such as the Whipple Federal Building and specific hotels.
• Within hours, local NGOs and national groups issue public calls to action. Protest times and locations spread across social media and encrypted channels simultaneously.

One organization appears repeatedly in any serious look at Minnesota’s anti ICE apparatus: COPAL, short for Comunidades Organizando el Poder y la Acción Latina. COPAL is not just another advocacy group. It runs a formal immigrant defense “rapid response” program that sits at the heart of Minnesota’s ICE watch system.

By late 2025, COPAL’s immigrant defense program had trained more than 10,000 people, a staggering number in a single state. Those trainees do not just sit at home. They plug directly into the Signal chats, patrol rotations, and rapid response networks that are now colliding with ICE in Minnesota’s streets.

The Vice President of COPAL is a DACA recipient who sits on the Board of Directors as well. His name is Edwin Torres DeSantiago and he has served on the leadership teams for the campaigns of:

    1. Tim Walz
    2. Peggy Flanagan
    3. Senator Tina Smith
    4. Senator Amy Klobuchar

He also sits on the Board of Trustees for the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, showing his integration into elite institutional circles as well as movement politics.

They have a direct earmark from leading Democrats. 

COPAL publicly credits Representative Ilhan Omar and Senator Amy Klobuchar for securing federal funds for COPAL and partner ACER to develop the Primero de Mayo Workers Center in Minnesota’s 5th District.

COPAL’s own statement thanks Omar and Klobuchar for their leadership and notes that these federal dollars will be invested in worker organizing and community power on Lake Street.

That also explains why the anti-ICE demonstrations ramped up so sharply just as Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz was being pilloried for turning a blind eye to such mega-scale corruption and misuse of taxpayer funds over so many years.  ICE's activities provided a distraction around which left-wing opinion could mobilize, and use it as a smokescreen to divert attention to Federal and other investigations of the missing billions of dollars in entitlement and aid funding.  The news media has, in large measure, lapped it up.  Independent and social media appear to be continuing the investigation, but are battling to publicize what they're finding, because every major news outlet is "distracted" from the subject (and, since most of them are themselves left-wing or progressive in orientation, are likely grateful for the excuse).

Thanks to Insurrection Barbie for a very enlightening tweet.  I'll be following her on X from now on.

Peter

The organizers behind the anti-ICE protests

 

Following this morning's first article, in which I argue that we're seeing a deliberate attempt to turn illegal immigration into a cause célèbre like George Floyd's death in 2020, City Journal has this exposé of one of the driving forces behind that attempt.

The People’s Forum is a “movement incubator” and “a home” for over 200 left-wing groups. Its Manhattan location offers “co-working space, conference rooms, a theater for film screenings, a media laboratory, a lending library, and [the] People’s Café,” as well as an art space, “ideal for art builds, poster making, screen printing.” Part of what makes the organization so quick to respond is that outsourcing isn’t necessary—everything is in-house.

. . .

The group has drawn congressional scrutiny for its behavior and alleged Chinese connections. Last year, Senator Chuck Grassley contacted the Department of Justice about TPF’s “reported Chinese Communist Party ties.” Representative Jason Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, urged the IRS to revoke TPF’s tax-exempt status, citing its role in “inciting riots and violence, supporting illegal activity, and conducting other activity contrary to the public good.”

Elected officials are right to worry. One of TPF’s most radical allies is Nodutdol, a pro-North Korean organization that hosted its end-of-year fundraiser at TPF’s space. In April 2025, TPF hosted a Nodutdol-facilitated event on “Socialism and Sovereignty” in what it referred to simply as “Korea,” in which it denounced “the constant demonization of North Korea” and deemed “reunification” of the Koreas “a vital front in the global anti-imperialist struggle.”

Newer organizations also rely on The People’s Forum as a volunteer hub. That includes groups like ICE Out of New York, which has staged direct actions, such as a disruptive protest inside a Manhattan Home Depot over the corporation’s failure to condemn deportations occurring on its properties.

. . .

While TPF is based in Manhattan, its influence extends far beyond Gotham. Its classes use a hybrid format, allowing anyone with an Internet connection to participate. TPF’s in-house press and bookstore, 1804 Books, prints, publishes, and distributes all manner of “socialist literature and revolutionary theory.” And as it fundraises for a major renovation, the group’s reach and operational capacity appear poised to expand.

This weekend’s rapid, coordinated protests make one thing clear: the anti-capitalist movement is growing. The People’s Forum is just one node in a massive militant network that opposes the American experiment. Officials must keep watch—and when lawbreaking occurs, take action.

There's more at the link.

Friends, that's just one group, in one city.  There are literally hundreds, possibly thousands, of smaller groups in most liberal left-wing cities, and they're all fed by "umbrella" organizations such as The People's Forum.  George Soros and his Open Society Foundations is another funder and coordinator of such activities, as is Hansjorg Wyss and his eponymous Wyss Foundation and the Berger Action Fund.  There are many more like them.  They're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars every year into US politics in an attempt to derail the Trump administration's policies, and prepare to take back political power as quickly as possible.

They're all funding and organizing and coordinating the anti-ICE activities we're seeing on our streets.  They're all doing their best to make it impossible to control those activities, by any means necessary.  We haven't yet seen ICE officers ambushed and assassinated while doing their duty, but I think it's only a matter of time until we do.  After all, from their insular and blinkered perspective, ICE just killed one of their own protesters, so such a response would be no more than ICE deserves.

Tragically, such extremism is beginning to make its presence felt on the right, conservative wing of US politics as well.  Remember Newton's Third Law of Motion?  "Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction."  Extremism begets more extremism, swinging and see-sawing to and fro.  Most of the victims don't really care that much about the extremes - they just got in the way.  They're useful cannon fodder to be exploited for propaganda purposes.  The BBC went so far as to headline, "Two starkly opposed Americas laid bare by deadly ICE shooting".

We are not, repeat, not a United States at this time.  We're far from it.  We can't expect everyone to support common-sense courtesy and decency, because few extremists are willing to do so.  That puts every moderate in the cross-hairs of one or other (or both) sides.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Peter

Shades of 2020... are we seeing George Floyd redux on the left?

 

When it comes to politics, I'm not a great believer in coincidences.  When headlines, proclamations and exhortations pop up like weeds around the same subject, there's always some form of coordination behind them.  If anyone denies that, they're most likely part of the coordination effort.

That's what we're seeing now in connection with ICE's immigration enforcement:  a concerted, organized effort to paint the agency as evil, and its agents as villains and demons, and to use both as levers to attack President Trump.  It's shades of the George Floyd riots all over again.  Consider these headlines (and click on any one to read the article concerned):

• Renee Nicole Good was Minneapolis ‘ICE Watch’ ‘warrior’ who trained to resist feds before shooting
• Crockett warns of nationwide protests over ICE shooting: 'State-sanctioned execution'
• WALZ’S REBELLION: Minnesota Governor ... Threatens to Activate National Guard Against Federal Law Enforcement
• ‘Stoking the Grievance Industry’: Leftist Groups Mobilize After ICE Shooting in Minneapolis
• Chaos!: Democrats Use Minneapolis Shooting to Push Their Anti-Trump 2026 Campaign Theme
• Just how insane did Democrats become on immigration?
• Who Is Helping Low IQ Migrants Defraud American Taxpayers?

Those are just a few examples of the torrent of articles (from both left and right wing authors and sources) about the present political and social situation.

If you can't see parallels between the riots of 2020 and those of 2026, I fear you're living in cloud cuckoo land.  The left, progressive wing of US politics is trying to whip up fear, anxiety and doubt around the issue of illegal aliens and illegal immigration (although they're very careful never to use, or accept the legitimacy of, either of those terms).  They want to make it a standard around which to rally support, and to undermine the policies and actions of the Trump administration. To achieve that end, demonstrations and riots, public violence, even looting and trashing other people's property, are merely tools in their toolbox.  The "restraints" of law, common decency, and ethical and moral behavior are a joke to them.  They use those things against those who believe in them.

In South Africa we used to say that the left wing (meaning, in that country, the anti-apartheid forces during the 1980's) were trying to make the country ungovernable.  To a considerable extent, they succeeded, leading to that country's first-ever democratic elections in 1994.  They used violence, controlled and uncontrolled, as just another method of applying pressure.  It cost us tens of thousands killed, possibly hundreds of thousands - we'll never know - and they still haven't stopped.  Stress kills, even after many years and many miles.  (See, for example, my 2008 article about the death of a good friend.)  I'm convinced that my heart attack in 2009, out of the blue with no warning, was just such a delayed-effect reaction to all those years.

With that experience behind me, I can say with absolute confidence that precisely the same tactics (particularly intimidation and aggression) are being used against conservatives, and against law enforcement officers and agencies (with particular emphasis on the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency).  The lyrics are different, but the tune is the same.  The fatalities here are a lot less, too . . . for now.

Folks, remember how disrupted things became in 2020 and 2021?  Expect it to happen again.  If you live in cities (and I sincerely hope many of you heeded my earlier warnings and left big cities behind you), you're going to be right on the spot.  Think it won't affect you?  I have news for you . . . the success of the left depends on you feeling their wrath personally, and being afraid of them, and therefore voting the way they want in order to "make it stop".  They won't leave you alone.

If you're still city-bound (and even if you're not), pay extra attention to the following:

• Make sure your emergency preparations, food and ammo stocks, etc. are as ready as possible.  Expect there to be another run on firearms and ammunition, just like 2020/21, as those who hadn't prepared in time try to do so at short notice.  If your own supplies are a little threadbare, beat the rush and stock up now, while prices are still relatively low.  Service and lubricate your firearms, and load your spare magazines!  There's nothing quite so useless in a defensive emergency as an unloaded magazine... or, perhaps, an empty fire-extinguisher when your house is burning.  (You do have fire-extinguishers - quality ones, of a reasonable size - in your home, don't you?  When did you last check them?)
• Design, prepare and practice emergency drills with your spouse and children, and anyone else who lives with you.  Be ready for an emergency if one arrives unannounced.  Liaise with your neighbors, and arrange with those of them who are realists to help each other if the need arises.  Keep your vehicle(s) serviced and at least half-filled with fuel, ready to leave in a hurry, and have at least 72-hour bug-out bags packed for every member of your household.
• Have spare cash on hand, as much as you can afford.  In an emergency, some vendors are likely to refuse credit cards, and/or the card charging systems might be out of service.  Cash is king!

Finally, if Minneapolis 2020 looks like it's coming to your neighborhood, be somewhere else!  Let insurance pay for repairs and replacement for any damage they do to your home and vehicles.  That's what insurance is for.

Peter

The dollar, the Dow Jones Index, and your money

 

Peter Schiff tweeted on Tuesday:

That's a very frightening statistic.  The Dow Jones Index rising so fast, and so high, is not because the potential for investment growth is there.  In fact, the value of the Dow on a per-dollar basis is down by three-quarters since the turn of the century.  The dollar is getting weaker and weaker, because we (or, rather, the Fed, and the politicians who spend it so wastefully and carelessly) keep on printing it like there's no tomorrow.

There are those who say that the dollar is, in fact, one of the strongest currencies around, and that's why overseas investors keep buying it.  I don't believe that for a moment.  The dollar simply happens to be the least bad choice among leading international currencies.  All the others - the euro, the pound, the renmimbi, the yen - are issued by economies that are in even worse shape than the USA's.

To add to the picture, here's what Jared Dillian had to say in his Chart Of The Week e-mail, also on Tuesday.  I can't link to his e-mail, unfortunately, but here's the meat and potatoes bit.

Here’s what nobody wants to talk about: When the dollar rolled over in the early 2000s, it didn’t just decline—it collapsed. And that collapse lit the fuse on the greatest commodities supercycle in modern history. Gold went ballistic. Oil went ballistic. Everything went ballistic.

Now look at where we are today. We’re testing the bottom of that channel again. The exact same technical setup. And when—not if, but when—this thing breaks, it’s going to be biblical.

The smart money isn’t waiting around to see what happens. They’re already positioning for the next commodities boom. Because that’s what happens when the dollar gets crushed. Commodities go lunar.

When this channel breaks, the dollar is going to get absolutely demolished, and commodities are going to rip.

The setup is right there. It’s staring you right in the face. The only question is: Are you going to ignore it like many will, or are you going to position yourself correctly?

Time to get long commodities. Like, yesterday.

I have no idea whether or not he's right - I'm not a stock market chartist - but, in the light of all we've discussed in these pages over the past several years about the dollar's weakness, and the unbalanced state of national and world economies, and the immense debt overhang that threatens us all . . . I won't be surprised if he's entirely correct.  As for whether to invest in commodities, I'm a small-time saver, not a big-time rich investor, so that won't affect me much.  However, I'm very glad that some years ago, I invested a small proportion of our savings in a few one-ounce silver coins.  They're currently up by about 250-300% in dollar terms over what I paid for them.  That's a commodity price I can get behind!

Meanwhile, apart from my medical expenses stash (which I dare not spend on anything else), I'm using our steadily-depreciating dollars to buy things we can use and will need in the short to medium term, because I expect that before long, if the dollar lets go, we may no longer be able to afford them.  YMMV, of course . . . but keep Weimar Germany in mind.  The parallels are ominous.  (See also zero stroke.)

Peter

"Politics is the art of the possible" - not the impossible

 

First German chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously opined, "Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best."  That's as true today as it was when he said it, about one-and-a-half centuries ago.  Unfortunately, many politicians ignore it and try to carry on regardless, usually with disastrous or tragic consequences.

The latest to do so is Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado has said she should "absolutely" be in charge of the country, following the US ousting of President Nicolás Maduro last week.

"We are ready and willing to serve our people as we have been mandated," Machado said in an interview with the BBC's US partner CBS.

She thanked US President Donald Trump for his "leadership and courage" after US forces stormed Caracas and arrested Maduro, but said nobody trusted the deposed president's ally who has been appointed as interim leader.

Machado and her opposition movement claimed victory in 2024's heavily disputed elections, but Trump has refused to back her, saying she lacks popular support.

There's more at the link.

I accept that Ms. Machado won an electoral majority in Venezuela during the most recent elections, but she never took power, because Maduro and his goons controlled almost every avenue of control open to them.  She was blocked at every turn, and had to go into hiding in case he arrested her - in which case she'd surely have had an accident or illness while incarcerated that would have killed her.  She recently had to be smuggled out of the country to accept her Nobel Peace Prize.

There's simply no way she can muster enough support from the authority structures in Venezuela to hope to take over.  Maduro and Chavez loyalists would kill her before she took office, and the entire government bureaucracy and machinery of state - long since converted into bribe-taking, corrupt, self-seeking figureheads - would refuse to obey any directive she issued, or any law she had passed, that threatens their place in the sun.  She may have popular support among the electorate, but the reality of the Venezuelan equivalent of the "Deep State" is that electoral support doesn't matter at this time.  As we noted yesterday:

Trump “is correct in saying this is a deeply corrupt regime, and it’s a deeply factionalised military and state structure engaged in all sorts of illicit activities, who would be hard pressed to part with their ill-gotten gains, prestige and positions, and literally put their necks on the line,” says Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.

. . .

And Maduro and Hugo Chávez, his predecessor, bought loyalty by carving the state into fiefdoms from which their various clients could extract rents, impoverishing the nation while creating powerful rival power centres.

“Now the head is gone, as we see when you have dictators die, you end up getting a lot of rivals under the leader jostling for power. So don’t be surprised if somebody in the military shoots the vice-president. That’s part of the disintegration,” says Pape.

Again, more at the link.

I agree that, in simple justice, Ms. Machado probably should be the next President of Venezuela.  However, in cold, hard, practical terms, for her to assume that office would be a death sentence for her, her family, and many Venezuelans who support her.  It would plunge that country into even greater turmoil.  It's simply impossible under present conditions.  To think otherwise is to live in cloud cuckoo land.

Peter

Order, counter-order and disorder in Venezuela

 

That seems to be what's happening in Venezuela at the moment.  There's only been one major media report of which I'm aware, over at Gateway Pundit, plus a passing mention on CNN, but it appears a coup d'etat is being attempted at present.  Stony silence from the rest of the mainstream media as I write this on Monday evening;  we'll see if there's more news tomorrow morning.

However, I'm not limited to the mainstream media.  I have a certain amount of what's colloquially known as "back-channel" news coming through.  No less than seven reports have reached me, from different parts of Venezuela, indicating some serious (and violent) disagreements between Maduro loyalists and thugs, and locals who were celebrating his overthrow.  In several cases, gunplay ensued, with civilian victims reported.  On the other hand, the armed factions (including the armed forces) aren't always on the same page.  I've had at least three reports of armed groups fighting each other in an attempt to take over local power structures and/or deny them to other groups.  Again, casualties are reported.

Nobody really knows how this will play out.  Chavez, and then Maduro, armed as many young gangs as they could, totaling perhaps a million people if you believe some reports.  These so-called "colectivos" were relied upon by the Maduro regime as enforcers of their political will, and many are criminals and murderers.  It wouldn't surprise me if they - and/or some of their leaders - tried to seize greater power now that Maduro is out of the way.  It'd be no more than self-defense on their part;  if the Big Boss isn't there any more, they're going to want to protect themselves against any reaction against them by the people or by Maduro's replacement, whoever that ends up being.

This article gives a good perspective on the scale of the problems confronting Venezuela, and also the USA as it tries to control what happens there.

Venezuela, says Robert A Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and one of America’s leading academic experts on political violence, has “perfect terrain for insurgency and terrorism”, as well as multiple armed militias and criminal networks numbering in the tens of thousands.

“Venezuela hosts numerous armed groups, including colectivos, who are pro-government militias used for repression; Colombian guerrillas like the ELN [National Liberation Army] and remnants of FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia]; major criminal networks like Tren de Aragua; and elements of the Venezuelan military operating semi-autonomously,” Pape tells The Telegraph.

“America will discover enormous apathy and significant opposition among the mass public. Ordinary people don’t like their resources going to benefit a foreign country. Trump’s gleeful promise to send in US oil companies to ‘operate’ Venezuela’s oil smacks of Western imperialism that is sure to trigger the worst images of the ‘ugly American’ that so many in the region know all too well,” he adds.

Let’s assume Rodríguez, whom Trump has also said is “willing to do whatever the US asks”, is a willing client.

What happens if she lacks the ability or the means to deliver the change America wants, or simply to hold the country together?

Venezuela is not going to be easy for anyone to fix.

Trump “is correct in saying this is a deeply corrupt regime, and it’s a deeply factionalised military and state structure engaged in all sorts of illicit activities, who would be hard pressed to part with their ill-gotten gains, prestige and positions, and literally put their necks on the line,” says Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at Chatham House.

The country is staring down the barrel of hyperinflation and a never-ending debt crisis. As Pape notes, the ELN controls patches of the border with Colombia, as well as gold and rare-earth mines in the southwestern provinces of Amazonas and Bolívar.

And Maduro and Hugo Chávez, his predecessor, bought loyalty by carving the state into fiefdoms from which their various clients could extract rents, impoverishing the nation while creating powerful rival power centres.

“Now the head is gone, as we see when you have dictators die, you end up getting a lot of rivals under the leader jostling for power. So don’t be surprised if somebody in the military shoots the vice-president. That’s part of the disintegration,” says Pape.

There's more at the link.

Frankly, I'm glad I don't have to worry about governing Venezuela in its present state.  That job may be impossible!

Peter

A criminal investigation I'd like to see to start 2026 on the right note

 

This headline yesterday boggled my mind.

DOJ's Inventory Of Unreleased Epstein Files Soars To 5.2 Million Pages

Remember February 2025?

Today, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), declassified and publicly released files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and his sexual exploitation of over 250 underage girls at his homes in New York and Florida, among other locations ... Attorney General Bondi requested the full and complete files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In response, the Department received approximately 200 pages of documents...

I don't know what bureaucratic battles Attorney General Bondi has had to fight with an entrenched anti-Trump Justice Department and a Deep State dedicated to fighting him and his minions at every turn.  Her public statements have all been along the lines that she's going to (and wants to) release all the relevant documents.  She may be the victim of bureaucratic sabotage, more sinned against than sinning . . . but her public image has become one of ineptitude, incompetence and waffling.

Who hid the existence of so many documents from her, and why?  Where were they kept, and why were they not catalogued in the FBI's systems so that they could be readily made available?  Why have we found out about them only in dribs and drabs, never all at once so that we knew the scale of the problem?  In particular, why has it taken almost a year to uncover the existence of this latest, massive "document drop"?

I understand that most, if not all, of these documents are coming out of the Justice Department's Southern District of New York.  If that's the case:

• Who was/is responsible for reporting their existence when the Attorney General of the USA demanded that information?
• Who has signally failed in their duty to obey the orders of their ultimate superior and deliver the documents in a timely and usable fashion?
• Why has he/she/they not been at least administratively disciplined, if not criminally charged, for their dereliction of duty?  And why has the Southern District not been cleaned out wholesale, top to bottom, and more reliable personnel appointed to it?  If a major division of a large private corporation had behaved in this fashion, you may be sure heads would have rolled a long time ago!

Attorney General Bondi's credibility has been severely affected by failures to charge various individuals and address known issues over the past year.  The latest development over the Epstein documents threatens to completely derail her government career.  She may become poisonous to the political touch for her supporters.

WHY IS NOTHING BEING VISIBLY, IMMEDIATELY DONE, OPENLY AND WITHOUT EQUIVOCATION, TO RESOLVE THIS ISSUE ONCE AND FOR ALL?

One hopes the President will act swiftly to address the matter.  These problems are doing him no favors at all, and are tarnishing his administration as a whole.  What's more, many of us who supported him want - demand - answers now.  We're tired of waiting, and see no good reason why we should wait.  If there's nothing to hide, why is it being so carefully - and so successfully - hidden?

Peter

Sure makes you think, doesn't it?

 

Found on social media, in multiple locations and variations:

That's one so-called "conspiracy theory" that immediately sounds suspiciously as if it might contain more truth than falsehood.  Were the Hortmanns murdered to send a message to their fellow politicians in Minnesota that disloyalty to the "machine", the "system", call it what you will, would be mercilessly avenged?

What say you, readers?  I've never been a conspiracy theorist, and hope never to become one, but this seems far more persuasive than mere coincidence or happenstance.

Peter

"At the beginning of the credit destruction cycle"

 

That's where Ed Dowd says we are.

Former Wall Street money manager and financial analyst Ed Dowd of PhinanceTechnologies.com warned in September we were at the “Beginning of Panic Rate Cut Cycle.”  Since that prediction, the Fed has cut interest rates three times.  Looks like Dowd called it correctly.

So, when does the panic kick in?  Dowd says, “The panic kicks in when there is some sort of banking wobble or stock market wobble, which is in the process of setting up.  Private credit is the first to show problems.  We had Tricolor Holdings (subprime auto lending bankruptcy) go poof.  We had First Brands (bankruptcy) go poof.  This is all private credit.  We have had other lenders like PrimaLend (bankruptcy) starting to go poof.  Private credit is just like subprime.  It not a very big part of the Jenga credit chain, but it’s enough to start a daisy chain of knock-on effects.  So, this is where we are, at the beginning of the credit destruction cycle.  We are seeing consumer credit card delinquencies nearing all-time highs, auto loan delinquencies and, next up, we will be seeing mortgage delinquencies.  People stop paying their credit cards first, then their auto loans and stop paying on their homes last.  As the layoffs accelerate, and we are already seeing more high-profile layoffs at Amazon, UPS and you name it, once those begin, we will be seeing higher delinquency rates.”

Dowd sees much lower prices for homes.  Dowd says, “There is a distinct problem between homes for sale and homes sold, meaning there are a lot of people wanting to sell their homes and not a lot of people buying them.  The inventory continues to grow. . .. The only way this clears is through price.  The price of homes is going lower.  We had an overbuild in multi-family housing because of the illegal immigrants.  Those deals are going sour and rolling over.  Rents are coming down. . .. It’s all slowly going the wrong way, and it will become a mainstream topic in 2026.”

In past interviews, Dowd points out there was massive fraud in the Biden Administration, especially in unemployment figures.  That, too, will all be revealed.  This is why Dowd pointed out last year that President Trump “Inherited a Turd of an Economy.”

. . .

There is much more in the 45-minute interview.

There's more at the link, and in the full video interview, which I highly recommend making time to watch at the above link, if possible.

(If you'd like to know more about the private credit market, which is at the root of many of the issues discussed above, see David Bahnsen's article "Private Credit Fault Lines" in the November 28 edition of "Thoughts From The Frontline".)

The thing is, it's not just private credit and consumer debt that are the problems, and the reasons why the "credit destruction cycle" is under way.  They're a microcosm of the national debt problem in many countries around the globe, including the USA.  Almost everyone, from individuals to households to corporations to bureaucrats to politicians, has been spending money that we don't have, behaving like drunken sailors with little or no financial discipline or sense of responsibility.  Credit has, to a large extent, replaced income in order to finance buying what we need or want.  John Mauldin points out:

In the early 2000s we were on the way to actually reducing or at least stabilizing this debt growth. The post-Cold War “peace dividend” and higher tax revenue from the 1990s tech boom, along with some small but helpful fiscal reforms, had us on the right path. But in short order we strayed from that path and fell off the cliff.

Let’s also note this is a bipartisan problem. In the period shown here, we had both Republican and Democratic presidents. Both parties controlled the House and Senate at various times. Both parties had “trifecta” periods of full control when they could have forced change. Neither did so.

The reason neither did so, in my view, is they are responding to voters and donors who, even if they say the right words about “fiscal responsibility,” don’t really want fiscal responsibility. They want their share of the action, whether it be defense contracts, welfare benefits, agricultural subsidies, free healthcare, loan guarantees or whatever. There is no significant constituency for actually making the kind of changes that would alter our debt trajectory. Just a few old curmudgeons like me.

Unfortunately, this won’t stop the changes from coming. They will come. They’ll cause a lot of pain we could have avoided. Then eventually, we’ll come out better on the other side. But getting there will be tough.

Again, more at the link.

I'm seeing very troubling echoes of the months before the last financial crisis in 2008.  In particular, I'm looking at how many banks are over-extended in supplying credit to the markets and to private credit entities.  Remember what happened after 2008?  Some countries and banks in Europe were forced to rehypothecate customer deposits in order to remain financially viable - in other words, they confiscated part of the deposits of many customers in order to pay off their bad debts.  They called it a "haircut" or a "capital levy" or any of a number of names, but the end result was the same - a lot of depositors lost a lot of money.  The best-known example is probably Cyprus, about which we wrote at the time, but it was far from alone.

Right now, I'm looking at the private credit sector and wondering how far we are from a repeat performance.  In fact, I'm wondering how much I should pull out of our savings account (which we built up to pay for medical expenses, as discussed at greater length a few months ago) and keep handy in cash, just in case . . . If banks close down for a few days or weeks, or limit withdrawals, or if a "levy" by whatever name is taken out of our deposits, it'll be useful to have enough cash on hand to keep going.

YMMV, of course.  We're told that the age of miracles has not yet passed - but I'm not sure our financial markets are miracle fodder, if you follow me.

Peter