We are barely into the spring of 2023, and the list of candidates or possible candidates for the 2024 presidential election keeps growing.

On the total establishment side, there is Joe Biden running for re-election, or some might say re-selection. On the Republican side, there are establishment hacks like Nikki Haley, and thankfully she has little chance of winning.

From a libertarian standpoint, there is a lot to be optimistic about, despite the dark times we are in. There are many candidates or possible candidates who are at least somewhat pro liberty. And while there are valid concerns about all them, we should feel good that we will hear some alternative viewpoints from the establishment narrative.

We have Robert Kennedy Jr. on the Democratic side. He is pro peace and wants to stop the merging of state and corporate power. For a Democrat, I don’t think you can get any better than him.

On the Republican Party side, we have Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy, Larry Elder, and possibly Ron DeSantis. While none of them are great libertarians, they all offer some positive hope.

On the Libertarian Party side, we may get a Dave Smith nomination, which would be incredibly exciting. He is a consistent and principled libertarian who is able to articulate pro liberty views to an audience.

While we shouldn’t believe that a new president will save the country, it is encouraging that the American people may hear more than an echo for the next year and a half. If we ever hope to achieve anything close to a libertarian society, we have to spread our message far and wide.

Trump Attacks

Donald Trump’s rhetoric is anti establishment. Unfortunately, his actions from 2017 to 2021 did not match his rhetoric. He surrounded himself by horrible people. The few good people he had around him ended up being taken out by made up indictments.

Trump sometimes acts like a third-grader. He likes to call people names. He is famous for assigning unflattering nicknames to his opponents. Some see it as bullying. Maybe it is, but I’m not going to shed a tear for Lil’ Marco, Low-Energy Jeb, or Crooked Hillary.

Trump is now on the attack against DeSantis. He views him as a threat. As long as Trump doesn’t totally implode, DeSantis is probably the only person that can take the Republican nomination from Trump.

Even though DeSantis hasn’t announced he’s running yet, Trump is relentlessly attacking him. He probably wants to put him down before he ever becomes a threat. He probably wants to just keep DeSantis from ever entering the race. It may or may not work.

In a recent interview, Trump was criticizing DeSantis for his handling of COVID. He said that Florida actually did poorly in terms of COVID deaths. (Just recently, Trump was criticizing DeSantis for locking down Florida, so this really makes no sense from Trump’s point of view.)

First, this is an unfair statement because Florida has a disproportionately high percentage of older people. If you adjust for age, Florida was quite average in the United States. It was not piled with corpses from COVID, in spite of what the establishment media wants you to think.

And by saying this, was Trump advocating that Florida should have locked down harder and longer than it did?

Advice for DeSantis

I have major concerns about DeSantis as president, especially in terms of foreign policy. So I am not cheering for him to become president unless I see more promising signs that he will not adopt the typical establishment foreign policy.

I feel fortunate to have lived in Florida for the last three years. DeSantis did issue lockdown orders for April 2020, but he quickly relaxed them and opened up Florida while most states were still under partial lockdown. Perhaps the only state better than Florida in 2020 was South Dakota, which had no statewide lockdowns.

So DeSantis was one of the least bad governors when it came to COVID, which admittedly isn’t saying much. But it did take some courage or foresight to not fall in line with the lockdowns in the summer of 2020.

In fact, this was the issue where DeSantis really shined. He became quite popular because he lifted the lockdowns so early. DeSantis barely won his election for governor in 2018. In 2022, he got close to 60% of the vote.

DeSantis needs to lay off attacking the woke stuff. He needs to lay off of Disney. I don’t want DeSantis in a battle with Disney. He can leave that to consumers. If I don’t want anything to do with Disney, I don’t have to give them my business.

While I’m not rooting for DeSantis, if I had to give him advice, I would say he should talk about COVID whenever he can.

Going All In Against Trump’s Vulnerabilities

If DeSantis officially enters the presidential race, he is going to get hit hard by Trump. He might not know what hit him. If you think the attacks are bad now, just wait.

If DeSantis gets into the race, the only possible way he can survive is if he hits back hard at Trump.

If he is incapable of doing this, I would highly recommend that he stay out of the race and focus on being the best governor he can. He can reassess in 2027/ 2028.

If DeSantis wants to have any chance of beating Trump, he has to hit him where it hurts. The biggest stain on Trump’s presidency is COVID and his reaction to it.

Trump allowed Fauci to essentially rule over the country for most of 2020. Trump could have fired Fauci. He could have just sidelined him. He could have told everyone to ignore Fauci because he’s a liar.

But Trump didn’t do those things. Trump allowed Fauci to act as a dictator. He allowed Fauci to spread lies and misinformation.

DeSantis can throw Trump back. He can hit Trump like Trump’s never been hit before. In fact, maybe DeSantis should stoop to Trump’s level and give him a nickname. He can call Trump “Fauci’s secretary”.

After all, Trump just lined up and did what he was told by Fauci. What excuse will you have Donald Trump? You were President of the United States. You can’t claim you didn’t have the power to do anything.

Another possible nickname is “Lockdown Donald”. Just about the entire country was locked down under Donald Trump.

Another Jab

Of course, that’s just on the lockdowns. If you really want to get the knockout blow to Trump, hit him with the vaccines. It will be a jab on the jabs, if you will.

Trump has continued to brag about “Operation Warp Speed”. Thanks a lot Donald Trump. You gave us a deadly vaccine at taxpayer expense, and just in time for Joe Biden to take over and try to force it on the entire country.

How many people died because of these shots? How many people are disabled? And why didn’t they do anything at all to stop the spread as you promised?

And then Biden comes in and continues with the jab promotion. He forces millions of people to get it in order to retain their job, while some got fired. It caused total chaos with businesses and millions of people being compelled to take a medical injection they didn’t want.

It’s great that Trump says he wouldn’t have forced it on anyone, but how should we know? Maybe he would have. He certainly set us all up for it. How are those “vaccines” working out now, Mr. Trump?

Does DeSantis Have What it Takes?

DeSantis would have to show great courage to say all of this, but it is the only way he can beat Trump. Trump would look like a wounded animal crawling back to his hole. DeSantis could completely devastate Trump and send him off in the sunset.

Again, I’m not cheering for DeSantis because I have major concerns about him. And while Trump may be one of the few slight possibilities we have of taking on the establishment, I really get irritated when I hear Trump making up false things about COVID. Trump was a total coward on COVID, and he let the establishment take him down on that issue.

2020 was an absolutely terrible year for America and the world. 2021 was also terrible because of the vaccines that Trump was promoting.

So if Trump gets taken down by DeSantis over COVID issues, I will say that he deserved it. If DeSantis takes Trump head on with this issue, it will also give me a little more confidence that DeSantis may stand up to the establishment if he becomes president.

The U.S. Treasury market was already crazy. We have had a mostly inverted yield curve for all of 2023. This tells us that a recession is coming.

The fact that the Fed has been mostly tightening is more confirmation that a recession is ahead. The Fed has been slowly draining its balance sheet, although there was a brief reversal of that with the Silicon Valley Bank bankruptcy. The Fed has continued to raise its target federal funds rate, and may even do it one more time, in spite of the inverted yield curve.

If it wasn’t crazy enough, now the short-term yields are all out of whack. Last week, the one-month yield on Treasury bills fell hard while the three-month yield did not.

The one-month yield fell over 100 basis points in a timespan of less than 2 weeks. The three-month yield stayed around the same or actually rose slightly.

The week ending on 04/21/2023 showed a mostly inverted yield curve from 3 months out to 30 years out. Again, this yells recession ahead.

The curious thing is that on 04/21/2023, there was a spread of 178 basis points to close the day. The one-month stood at 3.36%, while the three-month stood at 5.14%. This is a crazy spread.

A Debt Default Coming?

There is some speculation out there on why this is happening. Of course, most people don’t notice it or don’t care to talk about it, including those who actually cover the financial markets.

Mish Shedlock has speculated that people and businesses are buying up one-month Treasury bills (which forces down yields) because they are worried about a debt default coming. There is, after all, more talk about the prospects of the Republicans in Congress playing tough on raising the debt ceiling for the government.

While I can’t discount this as a factor, it is hard to believe that players in the financial markets are actually worried about a debt default by the U.S. government. Even crazier, by staying away from three-month Treasury bills in favor of one-month bills, that is saying that the U.S. government will have some form of default on its obligations within the next three months.

I have little doubt that the Republicans in Congress will allow the debt ceiling to be raised. Sure, there will be much political theater, and maybe there will be some concessions to have the appearance of some fiscal sanity, but I highly doubt either party will allow for an outright default at this stage of the game.

Maybe some investors are just wrongly worried about such a scenario. If that’s the case, then it makes a good case for buying three-month Treasury bills at this point. You can get yourself a nominal annualized return above 5%.

The Inversion is Still the Real Deal

I can only speculate on why there is a big spread between short-term yields at this point. My guess is that it will correct itself soon enough.

The bigger point is to not take your eye off the ball. That is the highly inverted yield curve and the fact that the Fed is still mostly in tightening mode.

The recession coming is likely to be one for the ages. The Everything Bubble is likely to implode. The air is already slowly coming out of the housing bubble. That should speed up rapidly.

The stock market, which is far more liquid and responsive, is likely to be a wild ride. And the ride is going to be more down than up in the next year.

A lot will depend on how the Fed reacts when things get bad. They’ve already shown that they are willing to bail out banks. But I don’t think they will bail out stock investors just for the sake of that alone. This is especially true when consumer price inflation is still running at 5%.

My thoughts for now are that you should be largely out of the stock market except for the permanent portfolio portion and heavy speculations.

If you have some liquid funds that you don’t need right now, you can take advantage of the yield spread and invest in three-month Treasury bills – currently the highest yield on the curve. It won’t beat inflation after taxes, but it is a way to lose less.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced that he is seeking the Democratic Party nomination for president in the 2024 election. This is the latest political news that is disturbing to the establishment.

RFK, Jr. is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, who was the U.S. attorney general and a senator in the 1960s. Kennedy (the senior) was assassinated at the age of 42 in 1968, just as he was locking up the Democratic nomination for president that year.

RFK, Jr. is also the nephew of John F. Kennedy, who was the 65th president of the United States and assassinated in office in 1963.

While the Kennedy brothers apparently had their moral shortcomings, Ted Kennedy was the worst. The country was saved from Ted Kennedy ever being president due to his killing of a young woman in 1969 when he drove off a bridge and left Mary Jo Kopechne to die. He was more worried about his political career than saving the woman.

Despite JFK’s moral shortcomings, I have generally come to believe that he was a decent man, at least politically. Sure, he was no libertarian, and I think some libertarians give him too much credit in saying that he wanted to get rid of the Fed. But I do believe that JFK wanted peace in the world, and that is one of the main reasons that he was assassinated.

RFK (senior) was something of an enemy of Lyndon Johnson, who probably had a hand in JFK’s assassination. It is very possible that RFK was seeking some revenge and was going to expose the assassination of his brother. But then RFK was assassinated before getting the chance to become president.

The Best Kennedy

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now trying to carry on the legacy of his father and uncle. Like both of them, he is putting himself at great risk.

I have followed Kennedy for several years now. I was already quite aware of his work on vaccine safety before COVID-19 was ever a thing.

For this alone, Kennedy is in disfavor with the establishment. They label him as a conspiracy nut and an “anti-vaxxer”. The last part is probably true, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.

Kennedy is deeply suspicious of the deep state. He generally believes that the deep state killed his uncle, and possibly his father too.

Kennedy is generally a man of peace. He speaks against corporatism (state and corporate power merged). He, of course, was an outspoken critic of COVID lockdowns and forced vaccination.

There are areas where libertarians will disagree with RFK Jr. He speaks of democracy (as if it is a good thing) in a way that most libertarians wouldn’t. But a lot of his talk about democracy is really talk against censorship, which most libertarians would agree.

Kennedy will also talk about the environment from a leftist perspective. Most libertarians don’t think the national government (possibly the biggest polluter on earth) should have anything to do with the environment. But Kennedy isn’t obsessed with centralizing more power when talking about the issue.

There are probably economic issues too where libertarians might take exception. But I think most libertarians can live with the few areas of disagreement because Kennedy is so good on the really important issues of our day.

RFK Jr. is probably better than his father and uncle, politically speaking. He certainly doesn’t lack courage, and he is already accustomed to taking abuse by the establishment and its media.

Let Them Debate

RFK Jr. is basically the polar opposite of Joe Biden. Biden is a liar and a criminal, and he is bad on almost every issue. Kennedy is honest and courageous.

Therefore, RFK Jr. has very little chance at getting the Democratic nomination. The establishment media will throw all of their hit pieces at him, and the majority of the Democratic constituents will believe it, just as they obediently believed everything about COVID and vaccines.

Maybe I am too pessimistic on this front, but give me a reason I should have any hope in the Democratic Party after the last 3 years of lockdowns, forced vaccination, spending, war, and a war on the American people?

The big positive about Kennedy seeking the presidency is that he will bring up issues that would be barely touched otherwise. He will also help to expose the evils of the establishment.

If Joe Biden runs again, I can’t imagine he would debate Kennedy. I think they would shut Kennedy out of the debates if there even are debates. If Kennedy were miraculously able to debate Biden, he would tear him down. Biden would be fumbling over his words even more than usual.

Kennedy will also serve as an attack against Trump on his worst qualities. Trump, no matter what you think of him, was really bad on COVID. He supported lockdowns, and he allowed Fauci to run the country into the ground. And I’m sure Kennedy will have a few things to say about Operation Warp Speed.

Support the Conversation

Libertarians can choose for themselves whether or not to support Kennedy in his quest for the presidency. But support is a lot more than just voting for someone or saying you endorse them.

You don’t have to commit to voting for Kennedy while at the same time support his getting in the race. He will open up the conversation to things that need to be discussed. He will provide a viewpoint that may not otherwise be heard.

I am happy Kennedy has entered the race for these reasons. I want the media to attack him so that more people will pay attention to him. I want people finding his work on the internet.

Maybe Kennedy isn’t the best on economics, but he is honest and courageous. These are the most important qualities that libertarians should look for in a candidate. Kennedy also tends to focus on the issues where he is strongest. Let’s hope he is able to reach many people who have yet to hear his message.

If you watch the establishment media, you might think everything is wonderful with the economy. We just need to get rid of those MAGA Republicans and then we will be nearing paradise.

If you watch alternative media, then you might think that the sky is falling and that we only have a chance of survival if we happen to elect the right politician.

While I generally have an idea of what is being said by the establishment media, I certainly prefer to pay more attention to alternative media. There is a lot of variation when it comes to alternative media, but there is certainly a sector of it where they have to announce that the sky is always falling.

This doesn’t mean that the sky won’t fall. It doesn’t mean that we might not get some of these bad economic and political scenarios. I just think that sometimes it is overhyped, and I also believe that it is better to tell people what’s possible instead of telling them that something will happen.

The future is unpredictable for everyone. We have no idea how the billions of people on the planet will act each and every day, and we certainly can’t anticipate reactions to that.

Bad Advice for What Might Happen

I appreciate warnings of what could happen. I do not like it when I hear advice given based on a prediction. I especially don’t like it when that advice is dangerous if a particular scenario doesn’t play out.

For example, maybe someone is predicting hyperinflation. They tell you to pull all of your money out of the bank and to buy gold and other hard assets. Maybe they tell you to load up on guns and ammo and food.

The problem with this advice is that it will be harmful to anyone who listens if the scenario doesn’t play out and there isn’t hyperinflation.

This is more than paying an insurance premium. It is paying with your entire lifestyle.

You can hear similar advice for someone predicting a banking crisis. They tell you to take all of your money out of the bank and to hold it in cash or to buy gold.

It is possibly only good advice if the scenario actually happens. If the world goes on and functions basically the same as it has been, then it is terrible advice that could financially ruin people.

The More Things Change

I have been one who has been warning of a deep recession ahead. I have also warned of the possibility of higher consumer price inflation.

But I don’t completely change my advice in terms of investing and money management based on what might happen. There may be tweaks to make to better protect yourself, but you still have to stay the course.

Even during times of change and turmoil, most things tend to go on. There most likely won’t be a breakdown of the division of labor.

Even if there is a banking crisis, it probably won’t be that much greater than in 2008. That was a bad financial crisis, but life mostly went on. It may have been a tough period of time for some people, but most people still went to a job, paid their bills, and ate dinner and slept in a bed each night.

Even with radical political change, things will largely stay the same. It is hard to imagine things getting crazier than they were in 2020 and 2021 when people were essentially locked in their homes. Then, many people were forced to take a medical injection in order to keep their job.

People who have lived in a war, where their actual home was in a war zone, have had it the worst. Whenever anyone says that this is the worst period in American history, think about the so-called Civil War where many hundreds of thousands of people died at a time when the population was a fraction of what it is today.

Staying the Course

It is important to have your principles in life. You should also have your financial/ money principles, and you should let them guide you. Don’t let the media (establishment or alternative) guide you.

If you need to make a change based on the latest news, make sure to think it through.

I still recommend that at least part of your financial assets be in a permanent portfolio. It is designed for virtually any economic environment. It may not protect you from a civil war, but not much will.

I recommend having an FDIC-insured bank account. You need it to pay your bills anyway. Your money is most likely safe in there. The biggest threat is currency depreciation, but that’s why you also invest in gold and stocks.

I recommend staying out of most debt. Pay your credit cards off each month. Don’t have any debt other than a mortgage and possibly a car loan. Even these should be manageable.

You should have long-term goals of saving for retirement and paying off your mortgage if you have one. Don’t think you are being wise by taking out extra debt using your house (or anything else) and investing the money. It will likely backfire.

If you want to speculate, then save extra money to do so. You can have a speculation fund aside from your more conservative savings.

Conclusion

It is easy to get wrapped up in the latest headlines and think the world is crashing around you.

The best thing to ask yourself is if you are protected if a particular scenario does occur. If you are vulnerable, and there is a reasonable chance of this happening, then perhaps you should make a change.

But this doesn’t mean going all-in on one scenario. Chances are that it won’t happen.

In all likelihood, things will be largely the same in ten years as they are now. You will still have a bank account with U.S. dollars. They will be worth a bit less than they are now. Contract law will still mostly function. If you have a long-term mortgage, you will still be making the same payments on that mortgage as you are today unless you move or finish paying off the mortgage.

Compounding interest will still work for you over time. Maybe the interest will be less in real terms with higher price inflation, but it will still be there, and you can still benefit from it.

In sum, don’t make any radical changes unless they are thought through well.

The latest CPI numbers came out showing that price inflation was 0.1% for March 2023. The year-over-year rate came down to 5%.

The median CPI came in at 0.4% for March, while the year-over-year now stands at 7.1%.

This was generally seen as good news by investors, although stocks couldn’t hold on to gains for the day.

It’s interesting that the market is still expecting another rate hike from the Fed, or at least it is slightly leaning that way. But the market is also expecting the federal funds rate to be lower next year than it is now.

So the market is expecting the Fed to hike, probably one more time, and then start lowering rates again later in the year. In other words, a recession is being anticipated.

The Fed Minutes and Blame

The latest FOMC minutes were released, and it wasn’t really good news, although it also isn’t unsurprising.

The meeting summary stated: “Given their assessment of the potential effects of the recent banking-sector developments, the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years.”

But let’s be clear on this. It isn’t fallout from the banking crisis that will throw the economy into a recession. The banking crisis is part of the recession.

Some of the same things that led to a banking crisis are setting the economy up for a recession.

There has been a heavily inverted yield curve for several months. We didn’t need a banking crisis to start to tell us that there is trouble ahead.

As with so many things, there is a confusion of cause and effect. Maybe the Fed is purposely inserting this confusion in order to blame the banking crisis and other outside forces on an economic recession instead of their own policies.

Playing Contrarian

The incredible thing is that the Fed is actually admitting there will be a mild recession. So if you are a contrarian, does that mean we should believe that no recession is coming?

I believe it’s the other way. The Fed is saying there might be a mild recession.

In this case, I don’t think the contrarian view is that there won’t a recession at all. It is that there won’t be a mild recession, but a massive recession.

The Everything Bubble is on the verge of implosion. The banking troubles that recently started are just the beginning.

It is not surprising that the CPI has come down a little bit. The Fed has been hiking its federal funds rate aggressively after being near zero. The Fed is popping the bubble in order to get some control of the price inflation that it caused.

To me, it’s clear there is a recession ahead. The banking crisis was just the beginning, and it isn’t the cause of what is to come.

As a libertarian, there are a lot of things I despise about Donald Trump. He surrounded himself by people who hate him. We got an administration of war hawks with Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, and Nikki Haley, just to name a few.

Trump got completely suckered by the COVID narrative. He kept Fauci on for his entire term in office, and Trump allowed Fauci to dictate COVID policy and hysteria. Trump also boasted about his Operation Warp Speed that later led to vaccine mandates.

Trump was better on foreign policy than any other president of the last 40 years, but that isn’t saying much. Trump tore up the agreement with Iran (one of the few decent things Obama did), and the Trump administration ordered the assassination of an Iranian official. He also continued the horrible wars that started before he entered office.

On economic policy, Trump was mostly a disaster. He did cut corporate tax rates, which was good, but he oversaw increased spending and massive deficits.

So I have a long list of criticisms of Trump and his 4 years in office. It’s hard to believe that Biden has been so much worse, but he has.

I will probably vote for Dave Smith in 2024 for president, but I can’t completely discount voting for Trump, and there’s really only one reason why, aside from stopping Biden or some other horrible Democrat.

Taking on the Deep State

Trump has taken on the establishment in many ways, even if his policies haven’t necessarily reflected that. And the establishment has taken on Trump with Russiagate, two impeachments, one indictment (so far), and non-stop hysteria and media coverage about how bad Trump is.

With all that has happened to Trump, you would think that he would be better on the issues. He won’t be better on economics, but he should have an even greater realization of the evils of the deep state than he did in 2020, and certainly compared to 2016.

Trump has been speaking out against the deep state, especially since his indictment. He has been speaking out against the FBI and other intelligence agencies.

A Slim Hope

Chances are, if Trump were to get elected in 2024 and take office in 2025, there wouldn’t be a great deal of difference, policy wise, as compared to his first term. He probably isn’t going to defund the CIA or dismantle the FBI. He probably won’t even surround himself with a bunch of “America-firsters” on foreign policy.

I’d say that the chance of a radical change against the deep state and in favor of liberty would be less than 10%. But with Biden or some other Democrat (aside from RFK, Jr.), the chance is zero percent. Even with some other Republican, the chances of significantly taking on the deep state are almost zero.

So even though Trump probably won’t be any good, there is a small sliver of hope.

To channel Dumb and Dumber, “So you’re telling me there’s a chance.”

Changing Hearts and Minds

Ultimately, we still need to change hearts and minds. It isn’t so much about electing the “right” politicians. But electing some people can help to change hearts and minds, and it can help to get the ball rolling.

Trump has already helped in some ways. The Republican Party as a whole is far less hawkish than it used to be. Ron Paul told Republicans it was ok to be a Republican and be anti war. Most of them weren’t ready for his message yet.

Trump comes along and had the right tone at the right time. He was able to call the Iraq War a disaster, and he really has helped expose the deep state in many ways. The deep state itself has exposed itself by overplaying their hand against Trump.

We have made progress, but more needs to be made. Many Americans have little trust in politicians and the establishment media. They just need to get a deeper understanding of economics, foreign policy, and the nature of the state.

And then it would help to have a little push from the top. If Donald Trump somehow gets elected and takes office again, we can only hope that he will be better and less naive than the first time.

I don’t have much hope in Trump, but at least there’s a chance that he could do something good.

This isn’t the first time I have addressed this topic, and it probably won’t be the last. But it is important to review given recent developments.

The U.S. government continues to act as ruler of the world, and this has only gotten worse since the war in Ukraine. The U.S. government has heavily sanctioned Russia, while expecting the rest of the world to go along with it.

Now we have the presidents of Russia and China getting together and making nice with each other. They are mapping out a future of trade that doesn’t involve the United States, and more importantly, doesn’t involve the United States dollar.

There are also other major countries like Brazil that are heading in this direction. But the biggest surprise may be Saudi Arabia. This country has reliably sold oil in the world market using U.S. dollars for the last half century.

It’s not that Saudi Arabia is abandoning the dollar, but it is telling that there will be oil trades in currencies other than the dollar.

The Dollar is Far From Dead

To be sure, the dollar is still considered to be the world’s reserve currency. It is still the big player in town.

The U.S. is the wealthiest country in the world in spite of the wasteful and destructive spending and high inflation. The U.S. is the economic powerhouse of the world, but it doesn’t mean it has to stay this way forever.

There is a reason that other countries want to do business using U.S. dollars. It has been a relatively reliable and safe currency, and others know it is always in demand.

But it was a terrible play by the ruling elite in the U.S. to sanction Russia and effectively default on certain “obligations”. Russia had smartly dumped most of its U.S. Treasury holdings years ago.

When all of this happened in early 2022, China held over $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities. According to the latest report on major foreign holders of U.S. debt, China’s holdings are down to about $860 billion.

So the Chinese are not abandoning the dollar. They aren’t panic selling U.S. Treasury holdings. But it seems they are slowly stepping away from the dollar and at least diversifying more.

All Fiat Currencies are Bad

Sometimes it isn’t a question of which currencies are good. It is more a question of which ones are the least bad.

We live in an inflationary world. Prices on consumer goods go up almost every year. This is true of almost every country on earth.

There is a reason for the existence of central banks. They aren’t there for price stability. They are there for economic control. They are there to help governments spend more money without resorting to direct taxation as much.

So it’s not that the U.S. dollar has been so great over the last hundred years. It has just been less bad than all of the other major currencies.

Perhaps one could argue that the Swiss franc has been less bad, but this is a very small fish in a big pond.

This is why I don’t think any other currency in existence is going to replace the U.S. dollar as the reserve currency.

Europe has as many problems or more as the U.S. when it comes to debt and a fragile banking system. And Europe’s economy is not as strong in general.

The same goes for Japan. The government debt in that country makes the U.S. Congress look conservative with money.

China is certainly an economic powerhouse, but there are still many restrictions, and the yuan is not a freely-floating currency. That right there eliminates it from being the world’s reserve currency.

Those are the big players. The euro, yen, and yuan all have their problems, and it is unlikely any of them will replace the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.

Why Do We Need a Reserve Currency?

Just because the U.S. dollar has had this status since the 1940s, it doesn’t mean that the world needs one reserve currency.

The most likely outcome is for the dollar to just slowly lose its dominance and for countries to trade with their own currencies.

If Saudi Arabia sells oil to China, there is no need to use the dollar. They can trade in yuan.

It is easy to convert into other currencies these days. Everything is electronic. As long as there is convertibility, there is no reason that other countries need to use the dollar as a middleman.

The Golden Possibility

If anything takes the place of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, it isn’t going to be another fiat currency.

I believe the only possibility is gold.

In fact, it already serves as something like a reserve currency. There is a reason that central banks hold gold. They don’t hold other commodities that I know of.

Gold has served as a form of money for thousands of years. And even though there are no currencies backed by gold at this time, the gold holdings of central banks help to give some kind of implicit backing to their currencies.

It is a very real possibility that some countries may start to use gold more for international trade. It is also possible that they may start to partially back their currencies.

And if this happens with a country like Russia or China, it’s not as if the U.S. government can just invade militarily and put a stop to it.

I hesitate to say that some kind of an international gold system is inevitable at this point, but it is a real possibility in the coming years.

Either way, it is important for individuals to protect themselves from government and central bank inflation, and gold will become a more attractive investment again for this reason alone.

Do you remember Tommy Thompson? There aren’t many people who do. He ran for president in 2007/ 2008. He boldly promised to use America’s vast resources toward eliminating breast cancer by 2015.

If only Tommy Thompson had won the nomination and the presidency in 2008. We would have had a cure for breast cancer 8 years ago. Does anyone honestly believe that? Apparently the Republican electorate didn’t believe it too much in 2007.

He isn’t the first politician to promise a cure for cancer, and he won’t be the last. You’d think with the government’s vast resources, they actually could come up with a cure. Trillions of dollars a year is a lot of money, but we have to take care of Ukraine first.

Cancer has been around a long time, and government promises to find cures have been going on for many decades. The government funds a lot of research to supposedly cure diseases, yet I am hard pressed to think of a cure for a disease that happened because of government. You would think they would at least get lucky once in a while and find something that works on some kind of disease.

The government or private research has been unable to find a cure for the common cold. There are things you can do and take to perhaps lessen the severity of a cold or prevent it from happening in the first place, but even these claims are hard to prove.

And the things that actually do seem to be a little bit effective at helping to get rid of a cold are healthy foods, healthy habits, and supplements. They aren’t things that are made in a lab, with or without government funding.

COVID “Vaccines”

This is an illustration on why it is so preposterous to think that the government funded research that came up with a “safe and effective” vaccine for COVID in the matter of months.

The COVID vaccines were conveniently declared a success right after the election had been decided (or called by the media) against Trump in November 2020. But the world was shut down for COVID in March 2020.

Are we supposed to believe that the pharmaceutical companies, with funding from government, came up with an effective vaccine against a coronavirus in the matter of 8 months?

Of course, anyone paying attention now knows that the so-called vaccines are not safe and they definitely aren’t effective. If anything, the sick people in our society seem to come more from the vaccinated population.

But if anyone had just thought about all of the promises to cure diseases over the years, they should have realized that a magical quick cure for stopping COVID was a dream at best.

It was certainly a fantasy for anyone to believe that COVID vaccines stopped transmission.

How Did We Know?

There are some public figures who are now admitting that the vaccines were not what we were sold. It is like trying to still defend the Iraq War and saying that Iraq really did have weapons of mass destruction. Some people see the writing on the wall and don’t want to look ridiculous fighting a losing battle.

But some of these people say that we just couldn’t know at that time. The problem is that some people did know. Or they at least knew that the vaccines and the propaganda used to sell them shouldn’t be trusted.

I could never guarantee at the beginning that the vaccines wouldn’t be effective. I also couldn’t guarantee that they wouldn’t be safe (i.e, there wouldn’t be significant adverse effects).

I knew that I couldn’t trust the establishment media, and I couldn’t trust anyone in a position of power in the federal government. I also couldn’t trust the so-called experts who get their funding from the government.

So maybe nobody really knew that the vaccines would be unsafe and ineffective, but many of us did know not to trust the people telling us they were safe and effective. Many of us knew that politicians and government bureaucrats have made many promises before that were untrue.

Some of us also realized that it was far too short of a timeframe to properly test these shots, and I can remember some people pointing out that there has never been a successful vaccine for a coronavirus before.

Advocating Force

The other major problem with the excuse makers now is that they advocated for the use of force against others. At the very least, when they were talking about how wonderful the vaccines were at the time, they weren’t saying that it should be a person’s choice whether to take them.

There were a few people who said that, but most of the enthusiastic promoters of the COVID jabs were people who seemed to have little problem with forcing people to take it.

Now they’ll just use the excuse, “But how could we have known?”

Well, first, you could have stopped censoring people who had a different viewpoint. You could have paid attention to people who were warning about the dangers of the COVID jabs.

But beyond that, why was the burden of proof ever on us to show that the jabs weren’t safe or effective? We aren’t the ones who were trying to use force.

It was Biden and company who tried to force about 100 million Americans to get jabbed or not be allowed to work. It is still stunning to this day to think about this. But half the country went along with it. The vaccine enthusiasts, for the most part, weren’t sticking up for the rights of the minority.

Perhaps the only reason the non-vaccinated make up the minority is because so many people were compelled to get the shots or were propagandized with fear and didn’t want to be shut out from society.

No Excuses

There is no excuse for advocating force. If these were moral people, they wouldn’t have been ok with the government forcing these shots on people. Even if you were stupid or ignorant and thought the COVID shots were great, it was immoral to force that on others.

If the COVID shots worked so well, then why do you need to force it on people? People would voluntarily line up to get it. Plus, if it stops infection and transmission, then it shouldn’t matter to you if others don’t get it. That would be their problem.

So while ignorance and stupidity played a big role in pushing the COVID shots, the biggest issue is one of morality. In a moral society, nobody would have been trying to force these injections on others.

There are still many people who just love their COVID shots and will defend how wonderful they are until the day they die. Some people have started to admit that they aren’t that wonderful after all, but it is because they are changing their opinions with the shifting wind. They still won’t offer a sincere apology for spreading misinformation while degrading those of us who were spreading the correct information.

I don’t want any excuses on why someone got it wrong. They have to admit they were wrong and not make up excuses for it, and they need to offer a sincere apology. They also need to admit that they were morally wrong if they did not defend the right of people to not take the shots.

For the people at the top who tried to force these shots on people, they should be held criminally liable. They killed people and ruined many lives, and there is no excuse.