A confidence game is any swindle in which the swindler, after gaining the confidence of the victim, robs the victim by cheating at a gambling game, appropriating funds entrusted for investment, or the like. Today is the midterm election. The Democrats are going to lose power as people lose confidence in big government. But Republicans won’t be able to cut the size of the government without millions of Americans losing their source of income. If they don’t cut spending, then people will lose confidence in the dollar as the government prints money because there are not enough taxpayers to afford the size of big government. This is the end of the Progressive Era.

“The wavelike movement affecting the economic system, the recurrence of periods of boom which are followed by periods of depression, is the unavoidable outcome of the attempts, repeated again and again, to lower the gross market rate of interest by means of credit expansion. There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.” -Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, pg. 570.

1848 was the year of Revolutions in Europe. The Revolutions were the result of hunger, impoverishment, and revolutionary ideas left by conquering French armies under Napoleon a generation prior in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars (1792-1815). Ideas like replacing your king with a Republic. Hunger and poverty are motivational. History repeats.

Taiwan, the Republic of China, has never been part of the People’s Republic of China, commonly referred to as China. Taiwan was conquered from Qing China by the Empire of Japan in 1895. Taiwan became an independent country in 1945 when the USA conquered Japan. Today, it is a major producer of semiconductor computer chips. It also serves as a convenient excuse for China to put tanks and soldiers in the street as they prepare for riots as their banking and real estate market collapses.

BRICS is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. They are a group of countries with significant enough populations and resources to create their own reserve currency, replacing the dollar for trade between them. They seem to be doing so.

Some people think that people are causing the climate to change and that the government can stop it. The climate does change but it is largely due to the precession of the earth’s axis and variation of the earth’s obliquity.

Updates on current events.

“All judgements of value are personal and subjective. There are no judgements of value than those asserting I prefer, I like better, I wish.”

-Ludwig von Mises, Theory and History, page 22.

The Federal Reserve is supposed to sell US government bonds to raise interest rates tomorrow, June 15, 2022. The Bank of Japan is trying to keep the Yen from inflating as they inflate the Yen. This can be done by selling the US government bonds that they own. The Fed may not be able to raise interest rates for long without the bond market crashing because the US (Fed and Social Security) and the Japanese are the biggest buyers of US debt.

Two recent mass murders in the USA are being used to call for common sense gun control. Gun control leaves people unsecure.

“Every Communist must grasp the truth, ‘Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’” -Mao Tse-tung, “Problems of War and Strategy,” November 6, 1938

Crypto currencies have been declining in dollar price lately. Some “coins,” such as Terra and Luna have completely imploded, wiping out the savings of those speculators. Terra (aka UST) was supposedly backed 1:1 with dollars. It was used to back Luna. Terra was not really backed 1:1 and defaulted when more people wanted dollars than Terra had backing it. Tether is a crypto that is supposedly backed 1:1 with dollars. It is used to back several, many, or all cryptos- including Bitcoin. If Tether implodes, the crypto market may implode.

The Biden-Harris plan to help people who are facing unaffordably high prices is to raise taxes and print money to fund “investments.” Price inflation is being caused by the government printing money (increasing “demand” for those who receive the new money first and raising prices for everyone else), locking down the economy (raising prices by reducing the supply of goods and services), and sanctioning trade with Russia (raising energy prices by reducing the supply of fossil fuels in the West). So their plan to lower prices is inflation to control the means of production (investments).

The basis of American Wealth is American Liberty. The basis of American Liberty is due process. Due process is based upon the Natural Law. The Natural Law is based upon the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule is the basis of wealth and liberty. Mutual respect is necessary for societies to flourish.

Food is getting expensive because of money printing, the Russian war in Ukraine, and Western sanctions limiting the trade of fuel, fertilizer, and wheat from Russia. Expensive food led to the French Revolution and the Arab Spring. There are food riots in Peru, Sri Lanka, and Shanghai, China. Revolutions are kindling.

Russia has allegedly stopped selling their gas for dollars to unfriendly nations. Buyers must now use rubles. The 2 year treasury is yielding more interest than the 10 year treasury. America is not the economic powerhouse of 1945. America is in a depression.

Western Sanctions on Russia are being met with counter-measures. Russia is to begin selling their natural resources for gold. The movie theater AMC is transitioning their portfolio to gold miners. Gold is replacing the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

On top of the historic money printing by the USA, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Western sanctions on Russia, fertilizer and food prices are rising. In addition, Russia is looking to begin selling their oil for rubles instead of dollars within a week, resulting in higher prices across the board. Higher food prices will make Victory Gardens popular again.

The sun never set on the British Empire. The City of London, British tax havens, and British banking still finance their world empire.

Saudi Arabia is looking to sell their oil to China in exchange for Yuans. Combined with US sanctions on Russian oil and banking, that would be the death of the petrodollar.

Most people who buy stock in the stock market logically think that they own that stock. In actuality, the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC) owns the stock. The receipts for the stock are traded through the DTCC and payments are settled at the end of the day instead of with each individual trade. This is known as “netting.” Ergo, you don’t own stock. The DTCC does.