“I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause. Investors really do understand now that we will be there to prevent serious losses. It is not that it is easy for them to make money but that they have every incentive to take more risk, and they are doing so. Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.” -Jerome Powell, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, then member of the Board of Governors, Oct 2012 Federal Open Market Committee Meeting.

“But then finally the masses wake up. They become suddenly aware of the fact that inflation is a deliberate policy and will go on endlessly.” -Ludwig von Mises, Human Action (1949), page 428.

Black Monday was 33 years ago today, Monday, October 19th, 1987.

The South Sea Bubble and the Mississippi Bubble burst 300 years ago in 1720.

Hindsight is 2020.

“The Congress shall have Power […] To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States.”

“The Swiss are completely armed and quite free.”

-Machiavelli, The Prince (1532), Ch 12

"I can calculate the movement of the stars, but not the madness of men" -Sir Isaac Newton, after losing £20,000 in the South Sea Bubble of 1720

A day of hard labor earned a man 2-3 grams of silver in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. A silver US dime is 2.2 grams of silver.

“The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.” -Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen speaking with CNN, 2010

Recently the Center for Disease Control (CDC) made evictions illegal in most cases because so many Americans are poor.

Today, gold is owned by most people in the Western World.

“In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state's role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.“

-Vladimir Putin, 2009.

Today people have access to the knowledge of the Library of Alexandria in the cell phone in their hands. 

“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.”
-Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States of America.

85% of Lebanon’s grain was destroyed in the explosion. The Arab Spring in 2012 occurred during a time of high food prices.

A list of the metal contained in commonly found coins. 

“We’re not even thinking about, thinking about, thinking about raising rates.” -Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. 

Sweden never ordered their people to wear masks and they have a lower mortality rate than the USA.

The stimulus programs have sent trillions of dollars of aid to families who are unemployed because of the government lockdown. Considering the current scale of the riots and unrest, what would happen if just one of the programs ended?