The FOMC released its latest statement on monetary policy.  The Fed will maintain its target interest rate between 3.5% and 3.75%.  This was widely expected.

Last year, the Fed used tariffs as an excuse not to be too aggressive in lowering interest rates.  Now they are using the price of oil as an excuse because it may cause higher prices.

Perhaps Jerome Powell and the Fed should stop using these excuses and just say that they don’t want to lower interest rates more because consumer price inflation is still coming in higher than their supposed 2% target.

Do Higher Oil Prices Cause Inflation?

This is part of the problem of this switch in definition of inflation.  Inflation used to mean an increase in the supply of money.  The central bankers and defenders of economic intervention changed the definition of inflation to higher prices.  Higher prices is actually one of the results of monetary inflation.

Now they can get away with just saying that higher oil prices cause inflation.  This is not necessarily correct in either sense.  Higher oil prices do not directly cause an increase in monetary inflation.  Only the Fed and the commercial banks using fractional reserve lending can cause monetary inflation.

Higher oil prices do not even necessarily cause higher consumer price inflation.  It will increase the cost of energy.  It may increase the cost of food and other items that require significant transportation.

This impacts the average person and reduces their living standards because most people need to buy food and gasoline for their car.  This also means they have less money to spend elsewhere.

This could reduce people’s savings in the short term.  But the bulk of the difference will likely be reduced expenditures elsewhere.

Now that you are paying more for food and gas, you might decide to eat out less.  You might decide to not buy that new sweater.  Maybe you will decide to forgo the kitchen remodel.

Therefore, prices in other sectors should actually fall where there is reduced demand.  This is assuming that there isn’t new money entering the system.

And therefore, it can be argued that rising oil prices is not a reason for the Fed to be concerned about inflation.  There are other reasons they should be concerned, but that revolves around government spending and the central bank’s own policies.

War is Inflationary

War is harmful in almost every way possible.  The worst thing is the death.  The next worst thing is the massive destruction of property, particularly buildings where people live and do business.

Maybe one could argue that it isn’t a loss if a government facility is destroyed, but even here, it would be better to just sell it off to the highest bidder.  Plus, governments will probably just spend money to rebuild.

War is really absurd when you see different sides just shooting missiles at each other.  It is just causing death and destruction with seemingly no benefit.  Of course, the main blame goes towards those who started lobbing the missiles without a morally valid reason.

If all of that isn’t bad enough, we get the cultural and economic rot on top of it.  The U.S. government is in debt to the tune of almost $40 trillion.  Spending a few billion dollars extra every single day on an unnecessary and immoral war is the icing on the nightmare cake.

The government can’t even come close to paying for its spending with tax collections alone.  It relies heavily on debt and monetary inflation.  That is the only way this war against Iran will paid for.  It will be even more debt and more inflation than we already have.

While the price of gold has pulled back a little from its all-time high, it is hard to imagine that it won’t be hitting new all-time highs again soon, unless we go into a severe recession.  Even then, it’s not so clear.

On top of the increased spending and monetary inflation, the U.S. dollar could be in for some more trouble. Trump completely underestimated the Iranian response to the attacks, and then he had to start begging other countries to help open the oil shipping lanes.  The other countries either didn’t give a response or said “no”.  They don’t want to be pulled into this mess any more.

Trump is truly doing his best to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world.  The rest of the world is tired of being bullied.  They don’t want to fight a military war with the U.S., but they can fight an economic war.  That means stopping the use of dollars in world trade.  They are realizing that they are better off avoiding the use of dollars when possible.

This will also be inflationary as excess dollars return to the U.S.  It will increase the price of gold in terms of U.S. dollars.

When Will the War End?

Trump can declare victory all he wants.  He can even stop bombing Iran.  But that doesn’t mean Iran has to stop throwing missiles at Israel and its Gulf neighbors.  It doesn’t mean that Iran has to open the shipping lanes for oil.  Iran can only do so much fighting against the U.S. militarily.

What Iran can do even more effective is to fight the U.S. economically.  And that is exactly what they are doing.  They are causing significant pain for the American consumer.  The average American was already feeling the pinch by their standards.

Remember in 2022 when you went to the gas pump with high prices?  Sometimes there would be a sticker with Biden’s picture saying “I did that.”  Now you could do the exact same thing with Trump’s picture.  Any adult with a functioning brain can realize that they are paying significantly more at the gas pump because Trump chose to bomb Iran.  There is little question of the correlation here.

Maybe some idiots will say it is worth it because we are getting the terrorists.  There are a lot of slogans being repeated from 2003.  But for the majority of Americans, they can understand that this was a war of choice, and it directly led to higher gas prices at the pump.  If they don’t get upset at over 100 school girls being murdered in Iran, they might at least get upset that it costs 35% more to fill up their car.

This could get a lot worse before it gets better.  Iran didn’t want this war.  Despite the problems there, it is a beautiful country with many kind people.  They don’t want this.  They have been left little choice but to fight back after being attacked multiple times by Israel and the U.S.

There is little motivation for Iranian officials to negotiate.  The last two times they tried to negotiate, they were attacked while in the middle of negotiations.  Why would anyone want to try to negotiate with Trump’s crew at this point?

This is why it might take a while for the conflict to end.  There is the potential for the price of oil to go much higher from here.  The one thing that is almost guaranteed is that there will be even more monetary inflation down the line.

• Trump keeps acting like he wants to negotiate his way out of this war.  It is kind of difficult when you killed the Ayatollah and many top Iranian officials, along with the people who you thought might be good replacements.
• Trump is not just evil in what he has done.  He has also shown just how stupid he can be.  He completely underestimated the Iranian response and how difficult it would be to stop the conflict once it began.
• Why doesn’t the government report on the damage done to U.S. air bases?  Is it because they have been flattened by Iranian missiles?
• You have to wonder if Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and other countries are questioning their relationship with the U.S.
• The Trump administration was supposedly negotiating with Iran in 2025 when Israel bombed Iran.  The U.S. joined in shortly after that.  The “negotiations” were happening again this last time when both the U.S. and Israel struck Iran.  If you were Xi or Putin, would you really want to talk to Trump or anyone else with the U.S. government at this point?  It seems like Trump’s idea of negotiations is “we’ll just pull a sneak attack and bomb you in the middle of negotiations.”
• We have no idea how much this will impact the flow of oil.  Maybe a global depression will help offset the rising cost of oil.
• The Ayatollah that was killed promised that Iran would never seek nuclear weapons.  Now his son has replaced him after having most of his family killed.  Do you think he might just be a bit more radicalized than his father?  How many people wouldn’t want revenge?
• When the U.S. attacked Iraq, Saddam and company lobbed a few scud missiles toward Israel.  They could do a little bit of damage.  They were not accurate.  Iran is a whole new ballgame.  The Iranian missiles are far more high-tech and powerful.  They also seem to be quite accurate at times.
• Tom Woods has had a saying for a long time now: “No matter who you vote for, you always get John McCain.”  I am seeing variations of that appear a lot these days.  Sometimes the people saying it don’t even know where it came from.
• I have commented before that, with the MAGA/ America First crowd, we are not going back to the Republican Party of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.  I was completely wrong there.  It is astounding how many “MAGA” people are supporting Trump’s war against Iran, along with all of his other bombings, invasions, and threatened invasions.
• The good news is that a majority of people are against this war.  While the hardcore MAGA bots have mostly stayed with Trump, there is a decent sized group who voted for Trump who don’t like what he’s doing now.  Not everybody who voted for Trump identifies as MAGA.  There were probably at least 10 million people who voted for Trump because they hated Biden and wanted to repudiate his administration.  (Kamala Harris said in her campaign that she wouldn’t have done anything different from Biden.)
• The U.S. empire weakens by the day.  But like a wounded animal, it is very dangerous when fighting for its life.
• I saw the warning signs of the Trump administration in March 2025.  They started arresting/ kidnapping legal immigrants for being critical of the state of Israel.  This is not what most people had in mind when Trump talked about cracking down on immigration.  If the feds will arrest people for speech critical of Israel, it is a really bad sign for what’s to come.  I don’t think this got enough attention at the time.
• There are a lot of people on the left whom I find I agree with these days in their criticisms of Trump.  Of course, they still get things wrong in what they say, and I don’t trust them for anything.  They were still wrong and/or lying about Russiagate, Trump telling people to drink bleach, etc.  Just because Trump is evil, it doesn’t make the leftists right on everything they say against Trump.  It also doesn’t make everything wrong that Trump does.  The left will use anything against Trump.  It just so happens that starting a massive war and turning the entire Middle East into chaos is an easy issue to win for the left.
• JD Vance is finished.  There is almost no way he becomes president unless Trump dies in office or is impeached and removed as president.
• Ask your MAGA/ Republican friends the following: What if Kamala Harris were president and started a war against Iran the exact same way that Trump has done and with the same results?  Would you support her on this effort?

This is an issue that most people just don’t think about much.  When they do think about it, it isn’t deep.

Unfortunately, many Americans view war as something of a video game.  More people are starting to understand that there is a cost to war, but they tend not to oppose war on purely moral grounds.

With the U.S. and Israeli governments starting a war with Iran (not just in Iran), there have been at least 6 U.S. soldiers who have died.  This gets a lot of attention.  Part of it is that it hits close to home.

If there is an event that kills 10 people in your city, it is going to get a lot of attention, and rightly so.  If a similar event happened in Thailand or Nigeria, you probably wouldn’t hear anything about it.  And to be sure, there is nothing wrong with that.

But when it is our own government initiating violence, every death counts.  They are making a big deal about the release of the names of the 6 U.S. soldiers.  Maybe the news should read off the names of all of the little girls who were murdered in Iran.

Pacifism and Non-Aggression

I am not a pacifist.  I believe in non-aggression.  I don’t think people should initiate violence.  It gets more complicated if someone steals property without using actual violence.

I believe that people have a right to defend themselves, including the use of violence.  If an innocent person is being attacked, then that person is justified in using violence to repel the attacker.

I believe that the use of violence really should be the last resort.  Even in the case of theft (which can be argued is violence, in a sense), there are oftentimes remedies that don’t require violence.

If someone has stolen money and refuses to give it back, there are ways that society can impose penalties and even provide some restitution for the victim.  The bank can take the thief’s assets.  The grocery store can prevent the thief from shopping there.  And if the thief is harmed by someone else, maybe he doesn’t get justice either.

Still, I am not necessarily against the use of some force in cases of theft.  Theft in itself is aggression.

War and Non-Aggression

The problem comes with war.  By nature, war is aggressive, even if responding to an attack.

Iran is demonstrating this dilemma now.  The U.S. and Israeli states are guilty of murder and war crimes.  It is completely inexcusable to attack another country that was not aggressing against others (in spite of media lies).  The only people who could lay claim to being aggressed against by the Iranian government is the Iranian people.

The moral question I have is in the response.  Iran has been firing hundreds of missiles into Israel and surrounding countries that have U.S. military bases.  It seems justified to fire missiles into military bases, but even here, there is not perfect accuracy.  Plus, when some of those missiles get shot down, they can fall on innocent parties.

The people living in or visiting the U.A.E. or Qatar don’t deserve to die.  Even the people living in Israel don’t deserve to die unless they were part of the specific group committing aggression.

This is the problem with war.  You can’t just defend yourself against the aggressors.  When you try to defend yourself, you are also going to kill innocent people in most cases.

This is an issue I struggle with.  If I were in Iran, I would probably be telling my government to fire missiles to cause pain to other people.  Even if you can’t kill the monster, you can give him a bloody nose.

The only other choice for Iranian officials was to literally do nothing and take it.  This just emboldens the “leaders” in the U.S. and Israel, and Israel would probably take over Iran, just as they are trying to take over parts of Lebanon right now.

There is an argument to be made that there would be even more death and destruction if Iran did nothing. Sometimes the bully needs to be punched back.  The problem is that punching back in this case means killing innocent people.

So, I don’t know if Iranian officials are “justified” in doing this.  It is certainly understandable what they are doing.  When you corner a wounded animal, they will eventually fight back even if they are the weaker one.

What I do know is that the U.S. and Israeli officials who initiated this war are murderers.  There was no legitimate justification to attack the people of Iran.

Donald Trump made the decision to strike Iran.  Sure, he does whatever Benjamin Netanyahu tells him to do, but he doesn’t have to.  That is his decision.  It is also Trump’s decision to cozy up to the likes of Mark Levin and Lindsey Graham and follow them over a cliff by enacting their war hawk agenda.

These people were never-Trumpers at one time because they didn’t like how Trump said that Bush lied us into war with Iraq.  They didn’t like Trump because he talked about trying to bring peace and putting America First.

Well, it turns out Trump was a complete liar when he talked about peace.  These neoconservatives also realized that all they have to do is constantly butter up Trump.  Just tell him how great he is and how much more wonderful he will be if he drops bombs on other countries.  It has worked brilliantly from their perspective.

Trump, the supposed peace candidate, is now doing the bidding of Netanyahu and the war hawks.  All they had to do was play on his ego and extreme narcissism.

No More Excuses

There are always excuses for Trump floating around.

• He had to do this so that he can achieve important policies in other areas.
• He is playing 4D chess.
• He is doing this to expose the deep state.
• He is doing this because the establishment is blackmailing him.
• He is better than Kamala would have been.

I have never been one for making excuses for politicians, although I was probably mildly guilty of excusing Trump at times.  If Trump bragged about how this is the greatest economy ever, I just chalked it up to Trump exaggerating and being over the top.

In 2015, when Trump came on the political scene, I didn’t like him much from a political standpoint.  Many years before that, he advocated for a wealth tax on rich people.  I recognized early on that he was a bit of socialist.

When I saw how much the establishment hated his guts in 2015 and 2016, I grew a bit of a soft spot for Trump, in spite of his many flaws.  Even though I didn’t vote for him in 2016, I was kind of cheering for him.  He seemed to change a good chunk of the Republican Party from just 4 or 8 years before when most of the major players were still defending Bush and the Iraq War.

I never place much hope in politicians in general, and it wasn’t much different here.  Still, even in 2024 leading up to the election, Trump seemed to have a bunch of decent people rallying around him.  This included Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Tucker Carlson.  If ever there was a chance for peace, however small, this seemed to be it.

So, I very hesitatingly voted for Trump in 2024, even though I knew he had many flaws.  I knew his tariffs would be a disaster, and I also knew that he wasn’t exactly a non-interventionist on foreign policy.  But he at least seemed to be less interventionist, and maybe there really would be a chance for greater peace.

It was not to be.  I already saw the major warning signs and shift in his administration in March 2025.  It has been all downhill from there, and there are no excuses left to make for the man.

Trump is a War Criminal

The Epstein files have made a lot of news lately, and rightly so.  They read like a novel.  Someone could have written a book about this stuff 10 years ago and people would have said it was too unrealistic.

Some people will say that other items in the news are a distraction from the Epstein files.  Some people will say that the Epstein files are a distraction from other things (aside from Pam Bondi saying that we should be talking about the Dow hitting 50,000).

I think the Epstein files are very important for multiple reasons.  On a broader scale, they show the blackmail that was taking place.  They also show just how sick some human beings can be, including people in positions of high status and power.

While the Epstein files are very important, there is a lot of speculation within them.  We are left wondering what is true and what’s not true in many cases.

There are other things where we don’t need to speculate.  In fact, Trump and others openly brag about them.

The Trump administration was blowing up boats off the coast of Venezuela.  There was no proof that these people were smuggling drugs, even though that still wouldn’t justify killing them.  Trump was ordering the murder of these people.  Some of them were probably just boaters or fishermen.

Trump has bombed 7 countries in his first year back in office.  Now he has restarted a war with Iran, which has already killed many people just in the first two days.

I wonder if Trump slept well last night knowing that he is directly responsible for the murder of many innocent people, including many children.  Trump has blood on his hands.  He is a murderer.  Not only should he not be president, he should be in jail.

I don’t have to speculate on what Trump did or didn’t do with Epstein.  I already know he is a murderer and war criminal.  If he is a pedophile too, it doesn’t add much at this point.

The Iran Lies

I have watched videos of people visiting Iran from several years ago.  I saw one video where the guy was welcomed with open arms by the Iranian people.  They knew he was American.  Most of the people there don’t hate Americans.  They distinguish between the American government and the American people. Unfortunately, most Americans aren’t as good at making this distinction with foreigners.

We are getting recycled lies from the Iraq War in 2003 for Iran today.  They are the same variations of lies.

• We have to liberate the Iranian people.
• The Iranians want to bring death to America.
• We can’t let them develop nuclear weapons or they will use them against the United States.
• Iran is the number one state sponsor of terror.

Do you know who the biggest sponsors of terrorism are today?  It is the governments of the U.S. and Israel.  Just look at the blatant killing of tens of thousands of people in Gaza.  Just look at what is happening in Iran now.

Of course, the U.S. and Israel (with U.S. funding and weapons) have the capability to bring down a reign of terror.  It’s not to say it might not be as bad or worse from some other countries if they had the means to do so.  But just based on what is actually happening, it is the U.S. and Israel that are bringing the most violence to the world right now.

The U.S. is a great place to live in many ways, and the American people in general are decent people.  This is why the war hawks have to spread lies when going to war.  They depend on the good heartedness and naivety of the American people.

Most politicians selling war do not come out and say that we are attacking another country so that we can kill a whole bunch of children and dominate the world and make the weapons companies rich (although sometimes they let those last parts slip out).  They sell war by appealing to the goodness of the American people.  They say we need to help liberate people and bring safety to us.

If You Hate the Democrats Now…

Some MAGA people think that if you criticize Trump, then you are a Democrat.  They live in this binary world of one side or the other.

Even if you live in your own Trump world and think it is ok that he is murdering children in Iran, why would you be cheering this on?  If you hate the Democrats that much, Trump couldn’t be doing a finer job for that party right now.

The Democrats were beaten.  Biden was a complete disaster.  Many people hate him for his tyrannical COVID policies, including me.  The Democrats were exposed.  They showed that they care more about transgenders competing in women’s sports and using any bathroom of their choice than they do about the American people.  They were highly unpopular in almost every way by a majority of people.

Now Trump has handed them a gift.  Trump has worked his hardest to try to vindicate all of the leftists out there with TDS.  They said Trump would be a dictator.  They said he was a bully.  They said he would act like Hitler.  They said he would try to take over the world.  Again, Trump is trying everything in his power to prove them correct.

The Democrats are still not popular.  A majority of people can’t stand the Democrats.  But when the midterm elections come in November 2026, the Democrats are going to wipe the floor with the Republicans.  They will also be seeking revenge.

Enough people who tacitly supported Trump and the Republicans will stay home.  Most of them won’t vote Democrat, but they won’t vote Republican either.  I know, and know of, several people who voted for Trump who are disgusted with what he is doing now.

The Democrats are going to take majorities in both the House and Senate.  They will probably impeach Trump, but it is questionable whether they will have the votes to actually remove him from office.

Again, Trump should be in jail for mass murder.  He should absolutely be impeached at this point for his many crimes.  But most of the Democrats voting for his impeachment will be total hypocrites.  They wouldn’t have voted to impeach Biden for the same things.

When we fall under Democratic tyranny next, you can blame all of the Republicans and MAGA who are still supporting Trump now instead of repudiating him.

Free Will

Trump had a choice to make.  He chose the evil path instead of the good path.  Even if he is being blackmailed, he could have resigned or just taken the consequences of the blackmail.

Trump is a total disgrace.  The Democrats constantly told lies to try to hurt Trump.  You don’t need to make stuff up about Trump now.  Just listen to what he brags about.  That is enough to tell you he is evil.

Every decent person should be opposing what Trump is doing to Iran right now.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump’s tariffs are unconstitutional.  Just hours after the ruling was released, Trump had to let it be known that it was a dumb ruling and that the Supreme Court was doing great harm to his economic agenda.

Trump declared that he would be enacting a 10% global tariff using a different law that would only last 150 days.  A day later, Trump said it would be 15%, continuing the chaos from his earlier tariff decrees.  And maybe Trump will just try to extend the tariffs again after the 150 days is up.

This is reminiscent of the Biden era not that long ago.  Biden and his handlers threw all of these unconstitutional decrees at the wall to see what would stick.  Tell 100 million people that they have to get an injection or they aren’t allowed to work.  The Supreme Court strikes most of it down.  “Oh well, back to the drawing board.”

Biden and his handlers declare that student loans would be forgiven.  These things are just done out of thin air with no legitimacy other than it is the president saying so.  The Supreme Court strikes it down.  “Oh well, let’s try a different way to get rid of student loans.”

A Lack of Consequences

That is a big problem with our system.  There are seemingly no consequences for the people imposing these dictatorial orders.

Biden should have been impeached for his injection mandates that he tried.  He should have been impeached for a lot of things.

Trump should be impeached for bombing 7 countries on his own without any Congressional oversight.  He should be impeached for imposing his tariffs that have caused mass chaos in the business world.
The Constitution is quite clear.  Article 1, Section 8 states, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”.

Tariffs are taxes on imported goods.  Only Congress has the power to enact legislation to impose tariffs.

Trump’s Picks

In the 6-3 ruling, there were two justices who voted in the majority who were appointed by Trump.  They were Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch.  In Trumpian fashion, Trump was very critical of them.

Now Trump can blame Gorsuch and Barrett for the economy when things don’t go his way.  Just like he will also blame Mr. “Too Late” Powell at the Fed.

Does Trump have any self-realization that he nominated all of these people?

Of course, Gorsuch and Barrett got this one right, and Gorsuch’s opinion was right on.  But Trump doesn’t argue with the facts and the arguments.  He just makes baseless claims and calls names.

But even if Trump’s criticism is valid of Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jerome Powell, at what point does he blame himself?  Trump will never blame himself, but even an outsider who doesn’t dive deep into these topics should at least question Trump’s judgment in character.  Why is he going hard after the people that he nominated?

The Disappointments

This should have been a 9-0 ruling by the court.  The three dissenting justices were all Republican appointees: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh was also appointed by Trump.  He has never been a strong proponent of liberty or constitutionalism.

I have long thought that Thomas is the best justice on the court.  I would have put Alito tied for second with Gorsuch.

I don’t have much respect for these people in the first place, but any respect I had for them is way down now.  To me, this is a major stain on the legacy of Clarence Thomas.  It is inexcusable to rule that these arbitrary tariffs are somehow legal.  It is actually absurd.  It is obviously partisan.

Gorsuch rises a bit in my eyes.  But I never put too much faith in any politician or elected official.

Tariffs and the Economy Ahead

This whole sage is far from over.  Trump will see what he can get away with.  When the economy goes south, he will blame it on the Fed and the Supreme Court.

The Fed is somewhat to blame, but not for the reasons that Trump says.  Trump wants lower interest rates and looser monetary policy.  That was what created the problem in the first place.

If Trump is prevented from enacting tariffs, this will make it so that there is less damage done to the economy.  It won’t save the economy, but it will stop it from being even worse.

There will be debate and discussion about the tariffs that were already collected.  Will they need to be refunded?  How would they be refunded?

Trump will blame this mess on the court, but it is Trump who created this mess.  We didn’t need this chaos.  He used tariffs as a means to bully other countries, even though it is the American people who suffer the greatest.

It seems we haven’t had “normal” times in quite a while.  A lot of Americans wish we could return to the Obama era, not because Obama was a good president, but just because there seemed to be a lot less controversy.

Some of it is the media blowing things up because they hate Trump.  But it’s not all in our imagination either.  The first Trump presidency was filled with chaos, but much of it was enabled by the establishment media making up stories about Russia and other things.

In 2020, that’s when things really blew up.  We got the COVID hysteria and the lockdowns, followed shortly by the vaccines.  We also got the protests and riots in major cities across the U.S. after the death of George Floyd in May 2020.

Then we had the actual election in November and all of the controversy with it.  Then we had January 6, 2021, where we still don’t know the extent of federal agents on the ground encouraging some of the events that day.

We suffered through 4 years of a Biden presidency where Biden was a puppet of the Democratic establishment.  He gave us vaccine mandates, which threatened about 100 million Americans by telling them they weren’t allowed to work if they didn’t take an injection in their arm.  We also had all of the other COVID insanity such as mask mandates and vaccine mandates for non-residents entering the country.

We got hit with high consumer price inflation in 2022, and there is a lot of blame to go around for that.  We also got the Russian invasion of Ukraine because the Biden people refused to talk in a civilized way with the Russians and assure them some security.

All this time, it was evident that Biden had some kind of dementia while his handlers and the media assured as that he was sharp as a tack.

Trump 2

There were reasons for cautious optimism in 2024 leading up to the election.  Trump was surrounding himself more often with seemingly decent people like Vivek Ramaswamy, Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr., and Tucker Carlson.  Even his pick for VP was a little out of the ordinary, as Vance was not a conventional Republican establishment war hawk.

When Trump became president, things actually looked a little promising for liberty lovers.  He pardoned the J6 people.  He pardoned Ross Ulbricht.  He allowed Elon and DOGE to start uncovering massive waste and corruption.

And within a couple of months of being in office, it all went downhill quickly.  Trump now seems to be best friends with Lindsey Graham, and he seems to take his orders from Netanyahu.  Trump bombed 7 countries in his first year back in office, including kidnapping the president of Venezuela and his wife.  He is threatening a major war with Iran now.

Trump has been a total disaster for liberty in almost every way in his second term.  It is at the point where it is hard to make the claim that “at least it’s not Kamala Harris”.

Trump has become such a loose cannon and narcissist that we don’t know what he is going to do on any given day.  We can only imagine what he will do if the economy goes into a depression.

Returning to the Basics

As long as we don’t get nuclear war, then life should go on for most people.  It is wise to not make any rash decisions, especially when things are emotionally charged.

It is tempting to think things will completely blow up, which can lead to bad decision making.

We probably won’t get hyperinflation.  We probably won’t see a complete default on U.S. government debt.  We probably won’t get martial law.  We probably won’t get concentration camps other than what ICE is doing.

I think back over 25 years ago.  I heard rumors during the Clinton administration of government officials wanting to confiscate 401k accounts.

The best bet is to count on some continuity.  We have lived in an inflationary world for a long time, so you can count on that continuing.  It might get worse because of the debt and spending, but it doesn’t mean we will get hyperinflation.

You probably won’t get your student loans forgiven.  The debt will become less in real terms because of inflation, but you will still owe the money.  That goes for every other debt too.

Your best bet is to stick with the basics.  Have a well-diversified portfolio of stocks, bonds, gold, and cash in the bank.  Stay out of debt.  It is still a good idea to pay off your mortgage if you can, especially if the interest rate is anything above 4% or so.

If you are working, do a good job and continue to gain skills and show your worth.  Your job probably won’t be replaced by AI anytime soon.

Your number one threat for retirement, financially speaking, is inflation.  It is probably your number one threat at any time, other than a job loss.  Inflation makes it hard to plan for the future.  It makes it hard for individuals and businesses.

Stick to the fundamentals.  Pay attention to what is happening in the world, but don’t let it drive you crazy, and don’t get too emotional over it.  People tend to make bad decisions when they are driven by too much emotion.

The latest CPI report came out showing that the annual CPI now stands at 2.4%.  This was a little lower than expected.  It is still not at the Fed’s supposed 2% target.

Even though we will hear that inflation is going down, prices are still going up.  The rate at which prices are going up is going down.

In other words, things are still 2.4% more expensive than they were a year ago.  This is an added 2.4% to the already-higher prices from last year.

Compounding interest is magical for investors.  Unfortunately, it is a nightmare when it comes to price inflation for savers.  It is a compounding reduction in the value of your money.

Celebrating Dow 50,000

Pam Bondi was on Capitol Hill this past week to testify about the Epstein files.  She pointed out that the markets are hitting all-time highs, including the Dow hitting 50,000.  She asked why we aren’t talking about this instead.

Bondi seemed to be reading from a script at times.  Maybe she didn’t know the stock market numbers.  If somebody wrote that script for her, they should be fired.  Pam Bondi should also be fired.  She should probably be in jail.

We should be happy that Bondi wanted to talk about the Dow hitting 50,000 instead of the Epstein files.  Her message was a political loser to say the least.

To answer Pam Bondi’s question about why they weren’t talking about Dow 50,000 that day:

1. Pam Bondi, you are the attorney general, not the Treasury secretary or the chair of the Federal Reserve.
2. Pam Bondi, you were in front of Congress to testify on the Epstein files, not on the state of the stock market.
3. Pam Bondi, covering up a massive blackmail and pedophile ring is important to some people.  For some people, it means more to them than the returns in their 401k account.

There also seems to be a bit of irony that the Dow 50,000 benefits many of the rich and powerful people whom we might refer to as the ruling elite.  There is an overlap with the ruling elite who are highly exposed in the Epstein files.

This could be one of the biggest political miscalculations in a long time.  This should be enough to force Pam Bondi out, but you never know with this administration.  Meanwhile, Trump is posting messages saying that Thomas Massie is a loser and that Pam Bondi did a great job.  If this was a great job, you really have a lot of problems.

The memes are already coming out on this one.  Whenever someone brings up an uncomfortable topic, the response is: “Why are we even talking about this?  The Dow just hit 50,000.”

Stocks and the Economy

Bondi was trying to suck up to Trump by touting his economy.  Of course, the stock market is not the economy.  Biden was trying the same trick when he was in office.  The sentiment was: “Forget about the rising prices of your groceries and your car insurance.  The markets are doing great.”

There is probably a slight majority of Americans who actually own stocks Most of the people who do own stocks have a modest brokerage account or 401k/ retirement account.

If someone has $100,000 in a 401k and it goes up 15% in one year, sure they are probably happy with the return.  But that doesn’t really help offset the higher credit card bills every month from groceries.  It doesn’t do much to make you feel better about your rising insurance costs.  If you need a new roof that costs $25,000, that $15,000 gain in your retirement account doesn’t seem to carry a lot of weight.

Also, we are far from guaranteed that these abnormal returns will continue.  The day after Bondi touted Dow 50,000, it lost over 1% the following day.  What if the Dow proceeds to fall to 30,000 over the next year?  Will Pam Bondi then be willing to talk about a giant pedophile ring run by our ruling elites?

You can be almost guaranteed that overall prices will continue to go up, even if they go up at a slower pace.  With the stock market, this is far from guaranteed.  Stocks tend to always go up over time because of inflation itself.  But you can easily have a bear market that lasts for years.

That is one of the notable things of recent times, particularly over the last 5 years.  There is a major disconnect between the stock market and living standards.  Even though we hear about good times on CNBC in terms of stocks, this is not how the average American is feeling.

Even if the stock indexes continue to hit new highs, this is a major political miscalculation by the Trump administration.  If stocks go into a bear market, you might see the lowest approval ratings ever for a president.

With the releases of millions of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, it is revealing a lot of lies and hypocrisy.  Of course, it is also revealing more evidence that Epstein was running a giant blackmail operation.

First, it is important to verify things on your own to the extent possible.  This is always important whenever you are going to speak publicly about events.  The internet is great for getting information out there.  Unfortunately, it is also great for spreading false information.

You can look at and search the files here.

With the Epstein files, there are a lot of things that are being made up or not presented in a truthful manner.  It is also important to understand that there are a lot of names in the files, and just because someone’s name is in the files doesn’t alone implicate them.

I am not one to defend Bill Gates, and I believe he is guilty of a lot of evil things.  But one of the juicier files talks about Bill Gates contracting an STD and secretly trying to give antibiotics to his then wife.  But Gates didn’t write this email.  Epstein supposedly drafted it and didn’t send it.  This alone does not prove Gates did anything wrong.  If anything, the bizarre language just shows that Epstein likely was blackmailing him.

I also want to point out that there probably are some innocent people who may be seemingly implicated in these files.  Epstein was running a blackmail operation, so he purposely tried to associate with rich and powerful people.  Someone’s association with a bad person doesn’t necessarily make that person bad.  It is an indicator of someone’s character when it seems to happen frequently, like the Clintons.  The Clintons have been associated with many bad people over the years, including Epstein.

I am a lot less forgiving for people who were associated with Epstein after he was indicted the first time and given a lenient sentence, to say the least.

The Hypocrisy of the Left

Most of the leftists who are talking about this issue at all are hypocrites.  They have all of a sudden been given permission to throw Bill Clinton under the bus.  But where have they been for the last 30 years?  For anyone who care to knew, there have been credible rape allegations against Clinton since he was president.

Regarding his association with Epstein, which was apparently quite bizarre at times, it’s funny how the left is just now willing to criticize Clinton just to give them permission to criticize Trump.

I wrote a post about the Democratic nomination leading up to the election in 2016.  In that post, I wrote:

“I think the next step will be to link Bill Clinton with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.  Clinton has taken repeated trips on his private jet.  Personally, I would be surprised if Bill Clinton isn’t a pedophile.”

That was in 2016.  Unfortunately, the link to the story in that post is dead.  But the point is that it was already known that there were flight logs of Bill Clinton flying to Epstein’s island.

So, to all the Democrats who are now willing to throw Slick Willy under the bus, where were you 10 years ago?

In fact, where were you on any of this for the last 5 years?  I see all these leftists saying that Trump and MAGA just want to ignore the Epstein files and cover them up.  To some degree, they are correct now.  But none of this would even be an issue if it weren’t for the rightwing in this country, including some of MAGA.

The left, generally speaking, never made this an issue.  They only made it an issue when Trump seemed to have something to hide.  I don’t remember loud calls from the left for the Biden administration to release the Epstein files from 2021 to 2024.  If anything, they would just call people conspiracy theorists if they pushed the issue too hard.

PizzaGate

With the release of the Epstein files, we get to circle back to 2016 and Pizzagate.

From Wikipedia:

“Pizzagate is a conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 United States presidential cycle, falsely claim that the New York City Police Department (NYPD) had discovered a pedophilia ring linked to members of the Democratic Party while searching through Anthony Weiner’s emails.  It has been extensively discredited by a wide range of organizations, including the Washington D.C. police.”

There you have it.  Wikipedia has declared it to be false, so it must be so.

I didn’t get much into Pizzagate back in 2016, although I was aware of it.  The establishment had to assure us that it was a wild conspiracy theory dreamt up by Qanon and Trump supporters.

The pizza references came from emails of John Podesta, who was a close associate of Hillary Clinton.  We were supposed to believe that Podesta really just was referencing pizza.

Well, here we are in 2026, and there are many bizarre references to pizza in the Epstein files.

It might be normal if adults were eating together in person and one of them mentioned how delicious the pizza is.  But it is not all that normal for adult men to talk about delicious pizza in emails to each other and to talk about when they can get together again for pizza and grape soda.  Given that Epstein was running a sex ring with minors, it calls into question the use of the term pizza.

I’m sure we’ll be getting an apology any day now from all of the people who slandered anyone who talked about pizzagate in 2016.

The Hypocrisy of the Right

This is more obvious because the hypocrisy has happened over such a short time span.  Still, there are many MAGA faithful out there who will just go along with Trump and his administration no matter what they do or say.

Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, and Trump himself have all shown themselves to be absolute liars.  Of course, it is worse than this.  They are lying to cover for pedophiles.

Maybe some of them have been threatened and don’t want to get involved in this mess.  If that’s the case, then resign.  Bongino left, but he is still defending what he did during his short time with the FBI.

All of these people talked about the Epstein files.  Then, sometime in 2025, word came down that there would be a coverup.  They said the files didn’t really exist.  Trump said it was a Democratic hoax, thinking his supporters are a bunch of fools.  He wasn’t completely wrong.

Trump goes after Massie and MTG for trying to get the Epstein files released.  Trump then is forced (politically speaking) to sign legislation to release the files, which supposedly didn’t exist.

Now we have these files that implicate a lot of people and strongly suggest this whole thing was a blackmail operation.  But Kash Patel and the FBI can’t be bothered to do an actual investigation.  Instead, we are left to sift through the files and piece together the puzzle.  Kash is satisfied that pizza is just pizza.

I don’t necessarily believe that Trump is guilty of raping children, but he is covering for people who rape children.  So are Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and Dan Bongino.  They are liars, and they are despicable people.

Conclusion

Some of the things in these files are so sick that is it is hard for many people to grasp.  They largely ignore them because it is so sick.  It is hard for people to comprehend that there are individuals in this world who are this sick.  It is even more disturbing when you think that these sick people are the ones who are ruling over us.

With millions of files, more is going to get uncovered, and we are going to start to fit more pieces together.  Of course, this uncovering is not going to come from the FBI or any federal government agency.  It also isn’t going to come from CNN or any other establishment news outlet.  It will come from the alternative media and regular people who are curious and willing to do some work.

We shouldn’t expect to see anyone else go to jail for this stuff, but it doesn’t mean it is pointless.  It is another wakeup call for people.  More people are losing faith in the system and realizing that the ruling elite are not on their side.  In many cases, the ruling elite are just really sick and criminal people.

It is funny how the Trump apologists are already trying to blame people who are criticizing Trump for what is going to happen in the mid-term elections in November 2026.

To be sure, some of the Trump apologists actually hate Trump and are just using him to execute their interventionist foreign policy.  Do you really think that Marco Rubio, Ben Shapiro, or Lindsey Graham like Trump?  They hated Trump, and they weren’t all that shy about it 10 years ago.  But now they realize that they can just suck up to Trump and stroke his ego, and then they can get him to do their bidding by bombing, invading, and funding foreign countries.

You also have the Trump apologists who probably really do like Trump, or at least they don’t hate him.  They like the prestige that comes with being a Trump apologist.  For example, Tim Pool went on a rant against Candace Owens with some colorful language, blaming her for why the Republicans would lose in November.

There are many people on the political right who are getting blamed already.  It isn’t just Candace Owens as mentioned above.  It is Tucker Carlson, Dave Smith, Thomas Massie, Rand Paul, and many others.  Sometimes it is even less political people like Joe Rogan, who supported Trump in the last election but has been critical of things coming from his administration.

While the Democrats reign in the White House from 2021 to 2025 was horrific, it would also be scary if the Republicans didn’t lose in November.  It’s hard to imagine that anywhere near a majority of people endorse the madness that has been happening for the last year.

Both parties abuse and expand power so much while in power, it is almost necessary to have them alternating.  At least the abuses shift.  We’ve gone from vaccine mandates to invading Greenland.  Unfortunately, the weaponization of the “Justice Department” hasn’t changed.  Only the victims have changed. The funding of Israel and Ukraine also hasn’t changed.

Whose Fault is This?

It is hilarious, if not irritating, when the Trump apologists blame the Trump critics, especially people who actually supported or voted for Trump.  This includes Trump himself.

Trump attacked Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who actually helped Trump when he didn’t have many friends.  Thomas Massie was trying to identify undercover federal agents who were at the Capitol on January 6^th before Trump even understood that this was a setup against him.

MTG is now out of Congress, and Trump is attacking Massie relentlessly, including attacks against his wife.  Trump doesn’t like Massie because Massie wanted the Epstein files released, and he doesn’t want foreign wars.  The lobbyists for Israel want Massie out, therefore Trump obeys his masters.

The Trump apologists will blame people like Massie for the Republicans getting wiped out this November.  The Democrats will likely take majorities in both houses of Congress.

Is it Massie’s fault that Trump bombed 7 countries in his first year back as president?  Is it Massie’s fault that Trump and his administration lied about the Epstein files, claiming it was all a Democrat hoax?  Is it Massie’s fault that the administration was arresting legal immigrants because they didn’t like what they were saying about Israel?  Is it Massie’s fault that Trump has created unnecessary chaos on the streets of major cities?  Is it Massie’s fault that Trump keeps growing the budget and the debt and continually changing tariffs on other countries on a whim?

It is hard to see how someone could have supported Trump in November 2024 and still supports him today. Virtually everything he’s done since March 2025 has been a total disaster.  He has been anti liberty in almost every way, plus we get all of the chaos and division that comes with it.

Trump has completely betrayed America First.  He has done the opposite of adopting peace towards other nations.  He has grown government in almost every way.  When the Democrats get in power and use ICE and tariffs and whatever else Trump used to enact their agenda, the Trump apologists will be crying over it.

The Power to Abuse

This is one thing that the loyalists to both major parties don’t get.  Or if they do get it, they are just evil.

They complain when the other party is in power.  But they never want to reduce that power.  They want the power for their side.

Harry Browne liked to say that the problem isn’t the abuse of power.  It is the power to abuse.

In other words, whenever there is power available, it is inevitably going to get abused.  It is going to get used against your side at some point.  The solution isn’t to try to get power for “your side” (whatever that means).  The solution is to reduce the amount of power so that nobody can have the power over others.

Kevin Warsh has been nominated as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.  After the announcement, gold and silver took their biggest price dive ever in terms of dollars in one day.

The announcement was perhaps a little bit of a surprise.  Warsh is more establishment than some others who Trump could have nominated.

Being establishment isn’t always bad, or at least it isn’t necessarily the worst thing.  When Trump is bombing 7 countries in one year, kidnapping foreign leaders, and seizing oil tankers in international waters, establishment sounds good in comparison.  Someone who is more establishment might be a little bit more cautious with the interventionism.

And so it goes with the economy and the Fed.  Trump is on the verge of recklessness right now.  He is as much of a socialist or more as the next politician.  He changes tariffs or the threat of tariffs almost daily and on a whim.  His administration is threatening criminal charges against Jerome Powell, and it seems obvious that it is because Powell has not been aggressive enough in lowering interest rates.

The Fed may be an evil institution, but I think we would rather a group of Fed members setting interest rates and monetary policy over Trump.  At least the Fed gives the financial establishment what it wants.  It will give inflation and lower rates, but only to a point.  Trump wants lower interest rates because he woke up in a bad mood and thinks it will grow the economy.  It might grow the bubble, but not the economy.

Kevin Warsh – A Yes Man?

Warsh was on the Fed Board of Governors from 2006 to 2011.  This was during the financial crisis of 2008.  So, he was part of the massive bailouts and quantitative easing (monetary inflation).

Still, he is somebody that seemed to go along with the consensus.  If anything, he is seen as being on the more hawkish side, meaning he doesn’t want to inflate as much as other people.

The U.S. dollar had been tanking recently, and gold and silver had been on an almost parabolic run up in price.  The announcement of Warsh temporarily reversed that.

Given Trump’s behavior in his first year in office in his second term, many people expected, and rightly so, for Trump just to appoint a total “yes man” who would do exactly what Trump wanted.  There is more of a question with Warsh on whether he will just do whatever Trump says.  He will probably throw him a bone and lower the Fed’s target rate right when he gets into office (if it hasn’t been lowered more already), but we can’t be certain after that.

Remember, Trump appointed Powell in his first term, and Powell doesn’t necessarily listen to Trump any longer.  Powell generally just goes along with the consensus.  (It isn’t that Powell is forming the consensus.)

Warsh is a fairly establishment pick.  The financial media like it because it supposedly helps restore “Fed independence”, which sometimes just means Fed secrecy and doing the bidding of the establishment.  The Warsh pick helps the U.S. dollar in the short run, as we aren’t getting someone flashy who will just try to drop rates to zero as soon as he enters office.

Warsh will be something of a “yes man” to Trump initially, but in the longer run he will be more of a “yes man” to the financial elite than to Trump, which doesn’t always mean a weaker dollar.

Betting on a Stable Dollar

The reaction to Warsh’s nomination by investors indicates that they think he will be relatively hawkish.  It is probably safe to bet the opposite.

Even if Warsh is in the establishment and slightly hawkish camp, he won’t really be the one determining monetary policy.

The government keeps spending more and more money.  There is almost no desire to cut anything back.  Trump is proposing a $1.5 trillion military budget, and he has a lot of countries in his sight for bombing or regime change.  Meanwhile, the so-called entitlement programs continue to grow.

We will likely hit a national debt of $40 trillion in 2026.  And that is if we don’t have a recession.  On top of it, price inflation is still above the 2% mark, even according to the government’s statistics.

The economy is not in good shape.  The Fed’s only solution is to manipulate interest rates lower and create more money out of thin air.  Unless someone like Ron Paul had been nominated as the next Fed chair, there is no sign that this out-of-control train is going to come to a stop without major wreckage.

Kevin Warsh will have no other answer than to create money to bail out the economy and the reckless Congress.

This is why any strengthening of the U.S. dollar is likely to be temporary.  A major pullback in gold and silver was inevitable anyway.  They had run too far, too fast.

It is a safe bet that the next Fed chair cannot stop this train wreck.