Your dollar has lost 96-97 percent of its purchasing power since 1913. This is not bad luck or mysterious market forces. It is the result of deliberate policy choices that steadily, quietly drained your wealth—and convinced you it was being done for your benefit.

The World That Was Stolen

For over a hundred years after America’s founding—roughly 1774 to 1900—prices did not steadily rise. Net cumulative inflation over that entire century was close to zero. Prices often fell, not because of poverty or collapse, but because of human ingenuity: more efficient factories, labor-saving machines, railroads slashing transportation costs, etc. Each new invention meant goods cost less to make and less to buy. Economists call this “good deflation”—the natural, healthy fruit of a productive economy.

Your great-grandfather’s dollar actually gained purchasing power as the decades passed. Imagine working hard and watching the cost of food, clothing, and tools gradually fall—so the same paycheck stretched further every year without a raise. That was the American reality for over a century. Then it was taken. As argued by George Selgin in Less Than Zero, a falling price level in a growing economy is not dangerous, it is the expected and desirable result of increased productivity.

The Great Excuse

The Great Depression gave those in power the justification they needed. We now know—what Federal Reserve Chairs have effectively admitted—that the Depression was not an inevitable market catastrophe. It was caused, deepened, and extended by catastrophically-bad government decisions: destructive monetary policy, trade wars, and tax hikes in the middle of an economic collapse. Without those failures, economists widely believe it would have been a painful but short recession—remembered the way we remember the recession of 1920, which ended quickly because the government largely stayed out of the way.

Instead, the Depression became the defining economic trauma of the 20th century. And that trauma became a political tool. Policymakers saw the Depression’s “bad deflation”—caused by their own failures—and used it to declare that all deflation, forever, was the enemy. They lumped a century of prosperity-driven falling prices together with their self-made disaster, called it all dangerous, and declared that responsible policy meant prices must always rise. The Federal Reserve’s own statements from this era make this policy rationale explicit.

The Crime by the Numbers

American workers are 5–6 times more productive per hour than in 1913. That explosion in productivity should have dramatically increased your dollar’s purchasing power—goods should cost a fraction of what they do now. Instead, the exact opposite happened: You work harder, produce more, and your money buys less every single year. That gap—between what your productivity should have delivered and what inflation actually let you keep—is the precise measure of what was taken.

The Smoking Gun

Then there is Beardsley Ruml. He was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a key advisor to President Roosevelt—one of the most powerful men in American finance at the exact moment these monetary changes were being locked in place. In the 1940s, he published an article stating plainly: given control of a central banking system and a currency not backed by gold, a sovereign government is finally free of money worries and need no longer levy taxes to fund its spending.

Read that carefully. A government with control of the money supply can create currency from nothing and spend whatever it wants, on whatever it wants, without asking your permission, without passing a tax bill, without ever having to tell you what it is costing you.

For most of American history, the government’s power to spend was chained to its power to tax. Taxing required legislation. Legislation required votes. Votes required facing the public and justifying every dollar. Inflation replaced that accountability entirely. Your wealth is now taken not by a vote in Congress but by the quiet, invisible erosion of every dollar you hold.

Ruml then went further. He proposed what we now call payroll withholding—as he explained in a 1943 radio interview—having employers quietly remove taxes from every paycheck before the money ever reaches your hands. The genius of the scheme, in the darkest sense, was that it solved the government’s collection problem while making the tax nearly invisible. Instead of one annual bill that forced people to sit down, do the math, and feel genuine rage at the total, you simply receive a slightly smaller paycheck every two weeks. The difference between what you earn and what you receive becomes background noise—expected, normal, something you stop thinking about after your first job.

What This Means Today

The costs of things you cannot live without have not merely kept pace with inflation—they have demolished it. Since the 1970s, housing costs have outpaced general inflation by 2-3 times. Medical costs have outpaced it by 3-5 times. College tuition has outpaced general inflation by 4-5 times since 1980. An entire generation has been effectively priced out of homeownership, one serious diagnosis away from bankruptcy, and entering the workforce not just broke but deeply indebted—their future earnings already pledged to lenders before they cashed their first paycheck.

In every one of these sectors—housing, healthcare, education—government involvement, subsidy, and money creation have driven costs skyward while making it nearly impossible for market competition to bring them back down.

Inflation is also the most regressive tax ever devised. It transfers wealth upward—from those who earn money to those who already own things. The working person holding dollars loses; the person holding real estate, stocks, and hard assets wins.

The productivity gains of American workers—your parents, your grandparents, you—should have made life steadily, measurably more affordable. Instead, those gains were quietly redirected. And citizen control over government spending—the most fundamental power in a democracy—was abolished without a single vote.

Beardsley Ruml told you exactly what was happening; he published it, he put his name on it. Nobody was supposed to be paying attention.

Image Source: Adobe Stock

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

The post The Theft of Your Good Deflation appeared first on Activist Post.

Trump says the U.S. already won the war

Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University economist, said in an interview on Thursday that the Iranians have tried to negotiate with the U.S. in June 2025 and February 2026 to reach terms to avoid wars, and in both instances, they were hit with sneak attacks with the hope of killing the country’s leadership, and they now know they are in an existential fight.

“They have tried repeatedly to negotiate and have been assassinated for their problems and attacked for their efforts,” he told Rachel Belvins. “And this time they’re fighting back because now it’s existential for them.”

He said President Donald Trump admitted that he has his sights on bombing Iran back into the “Stone Age.”

GET THE TRENDS JOURNAL WEEKLY MAGAZINE

“In other words, war crimes, mass murder, destruction of civilian life and the civilian economy…basically to reproduce what was done in Gaza in Iran. It can’t be done; it’s not going to happen that way. But that’s the motive….that’s the aim of the United States.”

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s top diplomat, posted on X in response to Trump’s threat, “There’s one striking difference between the present and the Stone Age: there was no oil or gas being pumped in the Middle East back then. Are POTUS and Americans who put him in office sure that they want to turn back the clock?”

Professor Mohammad Marandi told The Trends Journal last week that, despite Trump’s claims, there have been no negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Iranians are preparing for the U.S. to carry out a ground invasion.

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, told the paper, “Iran intends to make any U.S. landing as costly and politically unsustainable as possible. I expect Iran will try to swarm and inflict pain through drones first and then widening its retaliation to its neighbors.”

Trump posted on Truth Social: “Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants! New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!”

TREND FORECAST: Trump’s position on the war changes by the minute, so it is impossible to try to guess how this war escalates. It is correct to assume that Iran will be prepared to fight because it must know that this is a war for survival, and if the war ends, it will only be a matter of time before a new war begins.

Trump told Reuters that he expects to be out of Iran “pretty quickly.”

He said Iran will never have a nuclear weapon “because they are incapable of that now, and then I’ll leave, and I’ll take everybody with me, and if we have to we’ll come back to do spot hits.”

“They have tried repeatedly to negotiate and have been assassinated for their problems and attacked for their efforts,” he told Rachel Belvins. “And this time they’re fighting back because now it’s existential for them.”

He said President Donald Trump admitted that he has his sights on bombing Iran back into the “Stone Age.”

GET THE TRENDS JOURNAL WEEKLY MAGAZINE

“In other words, war crimes, mass murder, destruction of civilian life and the civilian economy…basically to reproduce what was done in Gaza in Iran. It can’t be done; it’s not going to happen that way. But that’s the motive….that’s the aim of the United States.”

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s top diplomat, posted on X in response to Trump’s threat, “There’s one striking difference between the present and the Stone Age: there was no oil or gas being pumped in the Middle East back then. Are POTUS and Americans who put him in office sure that they want to turn back the clock?”

Professor Mohammad Marandi told The Trends Journal last week that, despite Trump’s claims, there have been no negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Iranians are preparing for the U.S. to carry out a ground invasion.

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, told the paper, “Iran intends to make any U.S. landing as costly and politically unsustainable as possible. I expect Iran will try to swarm and inflict pain through drones first and then widening its retaliation to its neighbors.”

Trump posted on Truth Social: “Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants! New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!”

TREND FORECAST: Trump’s position on the war changes by the minute, so it is impossible to try to guess how this war escalates. It is correct to assume that Iran will be prepared to fight because it must know that this is a war for survival, and if the war ends, it will only be a matter of time before a new war begins.

Trump told Reuters that he expects to be out of Iran “pretty quickly.”

He said Iran will never have a nuclear weapon “because they are incapable of that now, and then I’ll leave, and I’ll take everybody with me, and if we have to we’ll come back to do spot hits.”

“They have tried repeatedly to negotiate and have been assassinated for their problems and attacked for their efforts,” he told Rachel Belvins. “And this time they’re fighting back because now it’s existential for them.”

He said President Donald Trump admitted that he has his sights on bombing Iran back into the “Stone Age.”

GET THE TRENDS JOURNAL WEEKLY MAGAZINE

“In other words, war crimes, mass murder, destruction of civilian life and the civilian economy…basically to reproduce what was done in Gaza in Iran. It can’t be done; it’s not going to happen that way. But that’s the motive….that’s the aim of the United States.”

Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s top diplomat, posted on X in response to Trump’s threat, “There’s one striking difference between the present and the Stone Age: there was no oil or gas being pumped in the Middle East back then. Are POTUS and Americans who put him in office sure that they want to turn back the clock?”

Professor Mohammad Marandi told The Trends Journal last week that, despite Trump’s claims, there have been no negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the Iranians are preparing for the U.S. to carry out a ground invasion.

Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, told the paper, “Iran intends to make any U.S. landing as costly and politically unsustainable as possible. I expect Iran will try to swarm and inflict pain through drones first and then widening its retaliation to its neighbors.”

Trump posted on Truth Social: “Our Military, the greatest and most powerful (by far!) anywhere in the World, hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran. Bridges next, then Electric Power Plants! New Regime leadership knows what has to be done, and has to be done, FAST!”

TREND FORECAST: Trump’s position on the war changes by the minute, so it is impossible to try to guess how this war escalates. It is correct to assume that Iran will be prepared to fight because it must know that this is a war for survival, and if the war ends, it will only be a matter of time before a new war begins.

Trump told Reuters that he expects to be out of Iran “pretty quickly.”

He said Iran will never have a nuclear weapon “because they are incapable of that now, and then I’ll leave, and I’ll take everybody with me, and if we have to we’ll come back to do spot hits.”

The post SACHS: Trump’s ‘Stone Age’ comment shows he wants to reproduce what happened in Gaza in Iran appeared first on Activist Post.

Alex Thorn, an executive at crypto investment firm Galaxy, said it is monitoring onchain activity for signs of an oil tanker fee paid in BTC.

The Bitcoin (BTC) community is discussing the feasibility and implications of the Iranian government accepting BTC for tolls paid by oil tankers crossing the Strait of Hormuz, a critical shipping lane through which about 20% of the global oil supply passes. 

The reactions were sparked by a Financial Times report, published on Wednesday, which said that the Iranian government was considering BTC payments for oil tolls to avoid sanctions imposed by the United States.

Several conflicting reports have been published since the Financial Times article, which suggest that the tolls are payable in stablecoins or Chinese yuan, according to Alex Thorn, the head of firmwide research at crypto investment firm Galaxy. 

BTC advocate Justin Bechler said that stablecoins can be frozen by the issuer and cited the compliance controls introduced in the GENIUS stablecoin regulatory framework as reasons why the Iranian government would not collect tolls in US-dollar stablecoins. He said:

“USDT and USDC include built-in blacklist functions at the smart contract level. When an address is flagged, the issuer can freeze the tokens, rendering them completely illiquid. The law’s enforcement depends entirely on the compliance of issuers.

Bitcoin has no issuer, no compliance officer to pressure, and no freeze function. Iran’s pivot toward Bitcoin follows directly from this structural reality,” he added. 

If the Iranian government begins accepting BTC for oil tanker payments, it would boost Bitcoin’s credibility as a neutral settlement layer for international transactions, advocates say.

Related: Crypto Biz: Will Bitcoin secure safe passage through the Hormuz Strait?

Iran would likely use QR codes to collect BTC payments

Thorn estimated that each oil tanker would need to pay between $200,000 and $2 million in tolls to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

The initial reporting from the Financial Times cited a spokesperson for Iran’s Oil, Gas and Petrochemical Products Exporters’ Union, who said that ships would have a “few seconds” to complete payment in BTC.

This suggests that ships would pay via the Lightning Network, a layer-2 payment solution for BTC that allows parties to send transactions in seconds, rather than waiting for the 10-minute block confirmation.

However, the largest known transaction over the Lightning network to date has been for $1 million, Thorn said. 

“More likely, the Iranian authorities would provide a QR code or alphanumeric Bitcoin address to the ships upon approval of their requests to pass through the Strait,” he added.

Magazine: Bitcoin may take 7 years to upgrade to post-quantum: BIP-360 co-author

The post Bitcoin community weighs in on reports of Iran’s crypto toll for oil ships appeared first on Activist Post.

In a recent televised rant on the Fox News Channel, the neoconservative publicist Mark Levin made the eye-opening claim that the current US-Israeli War on Iran is “every bit as important as World War Two.” Still more, according to Levin, the specter of an Iranian nuclear weapon (for which there is approximately zero evidence), requires us, as good citizens to rally around the President and the military. Not surprisingly, Levin also noted that President’s Truman decision to use atomic weapons against Japan saved “a million men” by forestalling a US invasion of the Japanese Home Islands (the inference being: Trump should do likewise). Truman’s decision to incinerate Hiroshima and Nagasaki with atomic bombs remains a topic (among a number of others) with which we Americans largely deal in the counterfeit currency of myths.

Despite the conclusions of the US Bombing Survey, that “certainly prior to December 1, 1945, and in all probability prior to November 1, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated,” few myths are as entrenched in the psyche of America’a media and political elites as the claim that Truman’s decision (invariably valorized as “brave”) to incinerate a quarter of a million civilians—mainly women, children, and elderly—in Hiroshima and Nagasaki won the war in the Pacific.

The claim that Truman’s decision saved countless American lives has grown to proportions that would have surprised, if not shocked, Truman’s own military high command. President George H.W. Bush, himself a veteran of the Pacific campaign, claimed that the atomic bombs saved the lives of half-a-million US servicemen.

The record, however, rebuts the myth.

Truman’s military advisers disagreed with Truman. Five-star Navy Admiral William Leahy, who served as Roosevelt and Truman’s chief of staff, felt that the bombs were “of no material assistance in our war against Japan.” The Japanese, said Leahy, “were already defeated and ready to surrender.” Leahy believed Truman’s decision to use nuclear weapons had “adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages.” Likewise, Admiral William F. Halesy, Commander of the Pacific Fleet, noted that, “the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers throughout Russia long before” Truman decided to drop the bombs. Two weeks after the nuclear attacks, General Curtis LeMay publicly criticized the decision, saying, “The war would have been over in two weeks. . . . The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.”

The myth that the bombs “saved” a million US servicemen who would have otherwise perished in the invasion of the Home Islands came from the pen and imagination of the man who would become among the most infamous strategists and apologists for the War in Vietnam, McGeorge Bundy.

Born in 1919 to an upper-class family from Boston, Bundy was a graduate of Yale who served as an Army intelligence officer during the war. His father, Harvey Hollister Bundy, was a close associate of FDR’s Secretary of War, Henry Stimson. After the war, McGeorge was hired to ghostwrite Stimson’s memoirs. It was just around that time that journalists and a number of former high-ranking military officials began asking uncomfortable questions about whether it was necessary to use the atomic bomb against the Japanese.

Stimson and Harvey Bundy viewed the growing criticism with alarm, and so, McGeorge was given a second assignment, which was to help Stimson write defense of Truman. That spirited and wholly dishonest apologia appeared on the February 1947 cover of Harper’s magazine. The article, which heavily relied on material provided by Harvey Bundy, said that the atomic bombs were “our least abhorrent choice,” despite the fact that the Japanese had been actively suing for peace. The Harper’s article also included the entirely made up claim that an invasion of the Japanese Home Islands would have come at the cost of a million US casualties.

As Robert Oppenheimer’s biographer, Kai Bird, later noted, Bundy’s essay, “Would stand for at least two decades as the definitive explanation of the decision to use the atomic bomb. Even today, it remains the orthodox view.” Six years after assuming the role of national security adviser, Bundy would depart the White House in disgrace, reviled for his role in perpetuating and defending the war in Vietnam. There is a certain symmetry to his public career, which began as it ended: In the retailing of lies.

Alarmingly, those very lies are now being repurposed by fools like Mark Levin and the his Israel First supporters within the Trump administration to justify a nuclear attack on Iran.

Reprinted with permission from the Realist Review.
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The post Nuclear Myths Continue to Fuel Neocon Fantasies appeared first on Activist Post.

The US-Israeli assault on Iran is being sold by the US as a defensive manoeuvre. However, it functions as something far more revealing: a maintenance operation for a global system that can no longer sustain itself and is increasingly reliant on violence.

The Strait of Hormuz can be regarded as a pressure valve for the world economy. Any threat to close it disrupts the predictability that global markets depend on for pricing, investment and trade flows.

Since 1973, the petrodollar has served as the backbone of US power—an unwritten pact ensuring that global energy is traded in a single currency. This arrangement forces every nation to hold dollar reserves, effectively tying the fate of a farmer in the Global South to the stability of a ledger in Washington.

But the petrodollar is not merely a financial abstraction. It is embedded in the global food system itself. The Green Revolution increasingly replaced soil biology with fossil fuel–derived inputs, turning agriculture into an extension of the energy economy. And because industrial agriculture is structurally fused to fossil fuels, any shock to the energy system becomes a shock to the food system, resulting in spiralling food prices.

When the US bombs what is effectively Iran’s ‘filling station’, it raises the price of fuel. Because modern agriculture runs on that fuel—through diesel-powered machinery, natural gas–based fertilisers and global transport chains—this shock feeds directly into the cost of food production. In this way, control over energy markets becomes indirect control over who can afford to eat and therefore over populations themselves.

Any nation that attempts to transact outside the dollar is treated as a systemic threat. Operation Epic Fury (or Epic Failure, given Iran’s response) is not about democracy or nuclear containment. It is about enforcing monetary hegemony and preventing the emergence of an autonomous alternative, particularly one centred on China and the BRICS bloc.

This system is upheld by a structural interdependence between the world’s two principal architects: the United States and China. They are framed as adversaries, yet they function more like rival contractors building the same digital enclosure. The US enforces the monetary architecture through sanctions and military power. China controls the rare earth minerals and processing capacity required for the drones, sensors and smart infrastructure that define the next phase of technocratic governance.

Together, these systems extend the same logic of dependency—from fuel and currency into data, infrastructure and everyday life.

Neither side wants to destroy the system. They are fighting over who will administer it.

As this struggle unfolds, institutions like the UN and the World Economic Forum provide the managerial vocabulary for the transition. Under the banner of ‘sustainability’, agriculture is being re‑coded into a corporate asset class. Farmers are being reframed as ‘carbon‑sequestering units’, and even the smallest family plot is being indexed as either a carbon sink or a systemic risk.

The concepts of environmentalism and ecological stewardship are being subverted to consolidate land, data and dependency in the hands of financial-digital elites. A world in which people can feed themselves is a world that cannot be easily governed.

Whether the server sits in Washington or Beijing is a secondary detail. The deeper project is the conversion of biological and social life into data and the elimination of decentralised resilience.

The official narrative of nuclear non‑proliferation is a convenient distraction. The 2026 attack on Iran is better understood as a strike against the alternative architecture China has been constructing across Eurasia.

Iran has long served as China’s discounted energy lifeline—a way to fuel its industrial machine outside the dollar‑denominated SWIFT system. By targeting the Iranian node, the US is performing a kind of geopolitical bypass surgery on China’s energy security.

Operation Epic Failure is a message to Beijing delivered through Tehran: any attempt to build a road outside the sanctioned lanes of the current order can be physically erased.

Yet the architects remain trapped in their own design. The US cannot collapse Iran without destabilising the very markets and Gulf petrodollar recycling that sustain its power. China cannot break free from a financial order it simultaneously depends on and seeks to undermine. Both are locked in a struggle to preserve a system that is already devouring itself.

As smoke rises over refineries and tankers idle in the Strait of Hormuz, the underlying truth becomes visible: empire still operates through force.

And this brings us back to the food system. True agroecology based on the restoration of soil biology and the nitrogen cycle is more than an agricultural practice. It is a form of political refusal (see Chapter 3 here for a discussion on agroecology: what it is and its successes).

A decentralised, self-sufficient food system severs the tether between the farmer, the dollar and the droning mantra of ‘smart’ agriculture (though only partially and unevenly in a world still dependent on global supply chains). Its power is biological, local and distributed—everything the current architecture is designed to suppress.

In a world being reorganised into data streams and dependencies, the simple act of growing food outside the system becomes the most subversive act of all.

The post Fertilising Hunger: Violence in the Gulf and the Logic of Control appeared first on Activist Post.

“So as things stand right now this certainly looks like a humiliating defeat for the empire.”

Reading by Tim Foley:

Trump has announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran after previously threatening to exterminate their “entire civilization”, citing “a 10 point proposal from Iran” as the reason for the climb-down.

Trump and his cronies are spinning this as a colossal victory for the United States and framing Tehran’s 10-point plan as a major capitulation to the president’s threats. But some reporters are noting that Iran has had the same terms on the table for weeks — which would mean that it is in fact the White House who is backing down.

Hours before the president’s announcement, Drop Site’s Ryan Grim posted a TikTok video arguing that Trump could save face while walking back from his apocalyptic threats by simply accepting Iran’s 10-point peace plan and acting like it’s a new proposal the Iranians had only just put forward. Grim argued that Trump could get away with this because the western media have been completely ignoring Iran’s stated terms for a ceasefire this entire time. 

Interestingly, this appears to have been precisely what Trump wound up doing. After previously rejecting Iran’s proposals as “not good enough”, the president turned around and framed the Iranian offer as a brand new response to the pressures his administration was able to impose upon them.

All the way back on March 28, Drop Site News reported the following:

“Among Iran’s terms for permanently ending the war are a longterm guarantee that the U.S. and Israel will not attack Iran again and that any ceasefire also apply to Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine; reparations for the damages done to Iran during the war; sanctions relief; and that Iran retain control over the Strait of Hormuz.”

These are the same terms Iran is claiming it pressured the US to accept today. Iranian state media outlet Press TV cited Iran’s supreme national security council as saying “Iran achieved historic victory by forcing criminal US to accept its 10-point plan. US has accepted Iran’s control over Strait of Hormuz, enrichment right, removal of all sanctions.”

The New York Times reports the following: 

“Two senior Iranian officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive negotiations, said the proposal included a guarantee that Iran would not be attacked again, an end to Israeli strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the lifting of all sanctions.

“In return, Iran would lift its de facto blockade of the key shipping route through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran would also impose a fee of roughly $2 million per ship that it would split with Oman, which sits across the strait. Iran would use its share of the proceeds to reconstruct infrastructure destroyed by American and Israeli attacks, rather than demand direct compensation, according to the plan.”

So as things stand right now this certainly looks like a humiliating defeat for the empire. Iran gets a lot of things it didn’t have before the war, including tolling the Strait of Hormuz and relief from the US sanctions that have been crushing its economy for years, while the empire gets to resume its shipping for a hefty fee and pretend it just rescued the world from a nuclear Iran.

Quite the turnaround from a White House that just last month was saying “There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!”

Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi, who always has great insights regarding western warmongering toward Iran, writes the following:

“I cannot emphasize this enough. A new dynamic will be at play when the US and Iran meet in Islamabad to negotiate a final deal based on Iran’s 10-point plan: Trump’s failed war has eliminated the potency of American military threats in US-Iran diplomacy. The US can still issue threats, but everyone will know that they no longer carry much weight. Essentially, war with Iran was tried and failed. As a result, negotiations will have to be based on genuine compromises from both sides, rather than coercion from either side.”

There are of course many, many reasons to be pessimistic. The US and Israel have demonstrated time and time again that they will attack Iran during negotiations, and even if the US holds up its end of the bargain we can always see Israel sabotage the deal with its own aggressions. By now Iran has to know that the only way to protect itself from Israel is to impose costs for Israeli aggression on the entire western world; Tehran will have us all heating our homes with trash fires and growing carrots in our backyards if the west can’t find a way to rein in Israel.

For what it’s worth, Zionist Twitter is in absolute meltdown right now, with notorious Israel apologists like Laura Loomer, Eve Barlow and Eli David rending their garments in outrage that the killing has ended with Iran positioned as it is. I’m as skeptical about this ceasefire as anyone, but the fact that the world’s worst people are in meltdown about it right now does provide a faint glimmer of hope.

We shall see.

______________

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The post The Empire Backs Down, For Now appeared first on Activist Post.

Just six weeks in, we’ve already got “global Economic scars” that will “define a generation”. That was fast.

The Iran War has been going on for less than six weeks, has thus far involved no infantry engagements of any kind on either side, and is currently in the middle of a ceasefire.

Does that sound like a conflict that can already be described as going to “define our generation”?

Because that’s what Sir Keir Starmer said earlier today.

Now, politicians engaging in hyperbole for the sake of a soundbite is hardly rare, but Starmer is far from alone in this over-statement…

The New Republic is calling Iran “the greatest strategic blunder in American military history”.

Let’s remind ourselves that official figures claim fewer than twenty US losses, no boots on the ground and – again – currently in a ceasefire after six weeks of fighting.

With respect, this is not even in the top two US military disasters of this century.

Iraq and Afghanistan cost trillions, lasted decades and in strategic terms achieved next to nothing – and though many, myself included, would argue that was potentially very much the point – officially they are very definitely disasters.

To already brand the Iran venture on that level reeks of agenda setting.

And at the same time, we’re being prepped for the economic impact of the (as yet) six-week-old war to last for years, by outlets like the New Statesman:

The Iran energy fallout is here to stay – It will take years for global markets to recover from the crisis

Foreign Affairs says the war is “upending the economy”.

The FT is warning of “long term scars”, while Fortune think it’s “re-shaping global power”.

Al Jazeera is wondering how global supply chains will ever recover.

Most tellingly of all, the head of the International Monetary Fund is out there declaring…

Iran war will permanently scar global economy even if peace is reached

You see, even if peace were declared tomorrow, it’s too late. We’re scarred.

She even added that the “most hopeful scenario” will cause a “permanent hit to living standards”…which she probably didn’t mean quite the way it sounds.

This is a LOT of premature narrative formation. Propaganda that spits out the answer before the teacher has even finished asking the question.

And it’s a tell-tale sign of narrative roll-out, rather than an organic reaction to real events.

I wonder what the end goal might be…

Of course he didn’t mean it that way but – hmmm.

Maybe this war will “define our generation”, but based on current information it will be because that was the plan from the beginning.

The post “A permanent hit to living standards” – Iran War agenda revealed. appeared first on Activist Post.

Those who had the misfortune of growing up in a war zone require no explanation. War is hell, it is true – but for children, it is something else entirely: a confusing, disorienting fate that defies comprehension.

There are children who live only briefly, experiencing whatever life manages to offer them: the love of parents, the camaraderie of siblings, the fragile joys and inevitable hardships of existence.

There are over 20,000 children in this category who have been killed in Gaza over the span of roughly two years, according to figures released by the Gaza Health Ministry and repeatedly cited by United Nations agencies. Some were born and killed within the same short time-frame.

Others remain buried beneath the rubble of the destroyed Strip. According to humanitarian and forensic experts cited by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), thousands of bodies are still missing under collapsed buildings, with recovery efforts hindered by the scale of destruction and lack of equipment. In some cases, extreme heat, fire, and the use of heavy explosive weaponry have rendered identification nearly impossible, meaning that many of these children may never be properly accounted for, let alone mourned at a grave.

These children will not have graves to be visited. And if they do, many will have no living parents left to pray for them. But we will always do.

And then, there are those who are wounded and maimed – tens of thousands of them. Visiting Amro, the wounded son of a relative who perished along with his entire family in Gaza, I witnessed one of the most heartbreaking sights one could possibly endure: the wounded and maimed children of Gaza in a Turkish hospital.

There were a few teenagers, many without limbs. Hospital staff had adorned them with the beloved Palestinian keffiyeh. Those who could flashed the victory sign, and those who had no arms raised what remained of their limbs, as if to tell every wandering visitor that they stand for something deep and unyielding, that their losses were not in vain.

But then there were the little ones, who experienced trauma without fully comprehending even the magnitude of their tragedy. They stared in confusion at everyone – the unfamiliar faces, the incomprehensible languages spoken around them, the empty walls.

My nephew kept speaking of his parents, who were meant to visit him any day. They were both gone, along with his only brother.

I was in kindergarten in a refugee camp in Gaza when I witnessed my first military raid. The target was our school. I still recall our teachers pushing back against soldiers as they forced their way into the building. I remember them being physically assaulted, screaming at us to run toward the orchard.

We began running while holding hands with one another. We were all wearing matching red outfits with stickers on our faces – none of us had any understanding of who these men were or why they were hurting the people who cared for us.

If the killing of children in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and across the Middle East is normalized, then it will become just another accepted feature of war. And since “war is hell,” we will all move on, accepting that our children – anywhere in the world – now stand on the front lines of victimhood whenever it suits the calculations of war.

I have thought about this often in recent years – during the devastation in Gaza, the wars across the region, and the killing of students at a school in the Iranian city of Minab.

Minab is not just an Iranian tragedy; it is our collective loss. Evidence from international investigations indicates that the strike on the Shajareh Tayyebeh school was not an accident, but the result of deliberate targeting within a broader military campaign.

Amnesty International concluded that the school building was directly struck with guided weapons. Investigations by major outlets, alongside US military sources, suggest the site had been placed on a target list despite being a functioning school. The result was devastating: children killed, families shattered, and yet another atrocity absorbed into the relentless rhythm of war.

The US administration may deny intent as often as it wishes. But we know that the killing of children is not incidental. It is evidenced in Gaza, where the scale alone defies any claim of accident. As UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell stated, “Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children.” That reality alone should end any debate.

I could pause here to tell you that all children are precious, that all lives are sacred, and that international law is unequivocal on this matter. I could invoke the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that “protected persons (…) shall at all times be humanely treated,” and that violence against civilians is strictly prohibited.

Yes, I could do all of that. But I fear it would make little difference.

Everything we have said and done has failed Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and much of our region. International law, once seen as a shield, has become little more than a point of departure for conversations about its ineffectiveness and hypocrisy.

Speaking to Palestinians about international law often generates not reassurance, but frustration and anger. So I will spare you that, too.

Instead, I want to make a call to the world.

A call on behalf of Amro, and the many others from our family who were killed, and the thousands more who perished; a call on behalf of the frightened children of the Flowers Kindergarten in my old refugee camp in Gaza: please, do not allow them to normalize the killing of children.

Do not settle for indifference, or mere concern, or even moral outrage that is never followed by action.

The post From Gaza to Minab, the Same Story – Children Paying the Price of War appeared first on Activist Post.

For the digital asset ecosystem of the future to flourish, investors need options, explains Sullivan.

Digital assets have moved well beyond the hype cycle. What began as an experiment in decentralized value transfer has evolved into a serious conversation about how capital markets, custody, settlement and asset ownership could be re-imagined for the digital age. Tokenization, programmable money and distributed ledgers may deliver faster settlement, greater transparency and new efficiencies across the financial system.

The opportunity is both real and transformative, but accelerated adoption of digital assets is not guaranteed.

The ecosystem’s success will not be determined by any single technology, protocol, innovator or platform. Instead, it will hinge on whether the industry embraces a principle that traditional markets have relied on and come to expect for more than a century: choice.

If investors, issuers and intermediaries are forced into narrow paths and left without options, the promise of digital assets risks being constrained by the very silos they were meant to dismantle. For Web3 to flourish, market participants must be able to choose how, where and when they engage.

Choice in blockchain networks: avoiding silos

One of the most pressing challenges facing digital assets adoption today is fragmentation. New blockchains and networks continue to emerge, each optimized for different use cases, governance models or performance requirements. While innovation is healthy, disconnected ecosystems can quickly become a barrier to scale.

Without interoperability, assets risk being locked into isolated environments, limiting liquidity, mobility and investor access. The result is a digital version of the same inefficiencies that have historically plagued financial markets, with the added benefits of being faster and more complex.

Interoperability has the potential to change that result. A “network of networks” approach enables assets to move securely across platforms, enabling market participant firms and investors to take full advantage of tokenization’s potential while preserving market integrity and scale. It simplifies use cases, unlocks new business models and supports regulatory consistency, without forcing the industry to converge on a single chain.

Indeed, some investors may prefer open, public blockchains, while others may gravitate toward private blockchains. It’s not a matter of ‘or’ – both can and should be available.

Achieving this vision will require collaboration. Market infrastructure providers, technology firms and regulators must work together to establish frameworks that prioritize compatibility and interoperability over control. In a recent white paper authored by The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) in collaboration with Clearstream, Euroclear and BCG, we explored how shared standards and coordinated governance could help advance interoperability while maintaining trust and resilience. The message was and remains clear: interoperability is foundational to scale and the future growth of digital markets.

Choice in what assets to tokenize (and when!)

Tokenization is often discussed as an inevitability, but inevitability should not be confused with immediacy. Not every asset will tokenize, and those that do will not do so at the same pace.

For example, while The Depository Trust Corporation (DTC), as a securities depository, facilitates the post‑trade settlement of securities representing over $100 trillion in value, we are not advocating for broad, indiscriminate, or immediate tokenization. Particularly in the early stages of this ecosystem, disciplined sequencing, intentionality, and caution are essential.

Certain asset classes, especially those with clear operational inefficiencies, high reconciliation costs or settlement frictions, are natural early candidates for tokenization. Others may follow as technology matures, regulatory clarity increases, and market demand evolves. Giving issuers and investors the ability to decide what makes sense for their needs, and on their timeline, reduces risk and builds confidence.

Choice, in this context, is about sequencing and needs. It allows the market to learn, adapt and scale responsibly rather than forcing adoption before the infrastructure is ready.

Choice in how investors want to hold real-world assets

Digital transformation does not mean abandoning established investing principles and processes.

For many institutional investors, tokenized assets will coexist with traditional holdings for many years to come. Some will prefer onchain representations for their operational efficiency or programmability. Others will continue to rely on established custody models, particularly as compliance and risk frameworks evolve.

A successful digital asset ecosystem can support both. Investors should be able to hold assets in tokenized form alongside traditional securities – and even switch back and forth between them – without sacrificing legal certainty, operational continuity or even the feeling of being in control. Flexibility ensures participation is driven by value, not obligation, and that trust is earned, not assumed.

Choice in wallets: empowering the client

Perhaps the most tangible expression of choice is the wallet.

As digital assets enter mainstream financial markets, participants will bring different preferences, risk tolerances and operational requirements. Some will prioritize self-custody. Others will rely on institutional-grade solutions. Many will want the freedom to change over time.

Wallet selection should belong to clients (market participant firms). No prescribed wallet. No mandated standard. This model empowers market participants to choose based on their own security needs, regulatory considerations, geographic requirements or internal controls.

This flexibility is essential for adoption at scale. Markets will thrive when financial institutions have the opportunity to engage on their own terms and can make decisions based on their clients’ and investors’ strategies, needs and preferences.

The path forward

The success of the digital assets ecosystem will not be built on constraints and limitations. Instead, it will be built on options: choice in blockchain, in assets, in custody and in wallets. These are practical requirements for facilitating growth.

If the industry gets this right, digital assets can deliver on their promise: more inclusive, efficient and resilient markets. If it gets it wrong, it risks recreating the limitations of the past on faster rails.

Choice is the key to making digital assets work for everyone.

The post The magic word for digital assets adoption and success: choice appeared first on Activist Post.

There are eight key indicators to watch as the US government falls deeper into the self-perpetuating debt spiral.

Indicator #1: Federal Budget Deficits

The chart below shows the actual and projected federal budget deficits.

It’s important to note that these projections rest on the ridiculous assumption that there will be no wars, recessions, or other events that drive additional federal spending. That assumption is already out the window with the Iran war: the Pentagon has requested an additional $200 billion, for starters.

Even with this rosy and unrealistic forecast, the US government is projected to run a cumulative deficit of over $22 trillion over the next ten years—deficits that will have to be financed by issuing more debt, a significant share of which will likely be bought by the Federal Reserve with “money” it creates out of thin air.

Indicator #2: The Federal Debt

The federal debt has exceeded $39 trillion, representing more than 124% of GDP.

It’s important to remember that GDP is a flawed statistic. For example, it counts government spending as a positive. A more honest measure would count government spending as a big negative, as it compounds the debt spiral. In the US, government spending accounts for at least 37% of GDP.

In other words, the amount of debt relative to the productive economy is much more than the official numbers suggest.

Indicator #3: The Federal Interest Expense

Annualized interest on the federal debt exceeds $1.2 trillion and is surging higher. That means more than 23% of federal tax revenue is going just to service interest on the existing debt.

The interest cost on the federal debt is already the US government’s second-largest outlay. It’s set to exceed Social Security and become the biggest federal expenditure in a matter of months.

Indicator #4: The Federal Funds Rate and the 10-Year Treasury Yield

Whenever discussing the Fed or central banks, it’s essential to keep the basics in mind.

You have to start with the most fundamental concept: central planning doesn’t work. That’s the first principle.

Central planning of shoes doesn’t work. Central planning of wheat doesn’t work. And central planning of (fake) money doesn’t work.

Central banks in general—and the Fed in particular—are on a mission impossible. They don’t know what the interest rate should be. Nobody does. That’s something only a voluntary market of savers and borrowers, dealing in honest money, can determine.

A politburo can’t centrally plan interest rates any more than it can potatoes. They are inevitably going to fail—and cause significant damage in the process.

It’s also crucial to remember that central banks have nothing to do with the free market. They are, in fact, the antithesis of it.

In Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto, central banking is the fifth plank.

With that important context in mind, consider the following.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Fed brought interest rates to roughly 0% and held them there for years.

Then, in late 2015, they started a rate-hiking cycle that lasted until the repo market turmoil in late 2019.

After the outbreak of the Covid hysteria in early 2020, the Fed brought interest rates back down to around 0%.

Inflation subsequently hit 40-year highs in 2022, forcing the Fed into another rate-hiking cycle, one of the steepest in history.

In just 18 months, the Fed hiked rates from around 0% to over 5%.

The Fed has now pivoted back to monetary easing and rate cuts without having defeated inflation.

The Federal Reserve essentially controls short-term interest rates, such as the Federal Funds rate, which is the interest rate at which banks lend to each other overnight.

Long-term interest rates, like the 10-year Treasury yield, work differently. These rates are shaped by a much larger market influenced by various factors beyond the Fed’s control.

While the Fed has significant influence and can impact long-term rates by purchasing bonds like the 10-Year Treasury, other market dynamics also play a role. In short, the Fed can exert some influence over long-term rates but does not fully control them.

The 10-year Treasury yield reflects the annual return an investor can expect if they purchase a 10-year US Treasury bond today and hold it until maturity.

The 10-year Treasury yield is perhaps the most important financial benchmark in the global fiat system, as it drives valuations and market trends worldwide. It is widely (and erroneously) thought of as the risk-free rate of return.

The 10-year Treasury yield can be thought of as a key barometer of the US dollar-based fiat system—a critical measure akin to its “beating heart.”

Bond yields move inversely to bond prices. When bond prices fall, bond yields rise.

A rising 10-year Treasury yield signals trouble for the US dollar because it indicates that investors are selling off bonds, which increases the US government’s borrowing costs.

Indicator #5: The Fed’s Balance Sheet

The Fed recently announced that it has ended the shrinking of its balance sheet and will now begin expanding it again.

The Fed insists this isn’t quantitative easing, calling it “reserve management” and pointing out that it isn’t explicitly targeting long-term Treasuries. That’s just wordplay. Buying Treasuries with newly created money is money printing, regardless of what label they attach to it. The Fed’s balance sheet is expanding again. A new printing cycle has begun.

We’ve seen this pattern repeatedly. The Fed expands its balance sheet, then tries to shrink it. Something eventually breaks in the financial system, and the Fed pivots right back to easing and money creation. Each time this happens, the balance sheet never returns to its prior level. It ratchets permanently higher with every cycle of debasement.

What makes the current situation especially telling is that the Fed is entering another balance-sheet expansion phase even though the balance sheet is still more than 50% larger than it was before the Covid mass psychosis.

Before 2020, the Fed’s balance sheet was roughly $4 trillion. It exploded to nearly $9 trillion during the Covid response. Even after so-called “quantitative tightening,” it remains nowhere near its pre-Covid level.

This completely contradicts the Fed’s long-standing claim that programs like QE are temporary.

Remember when former Fed Chair Ben Bernanke promised the balance sheet would eventually normalize after the 2008 financial crisis? That promise was made nearly 15 years ago, when the Fed’s balance sheet was around $2.5 trillion and was supposed to shrink back toward pre-crisis levels below $1 trillion. Instead, today the balance sheet is more than double what it was when Bernanke made that pledge — and now the Fed is entering yet another expansion cycle that threatens to push it even higher.

The long-term trend is obvious. The balance sheet only goes one direction: up. And the implication is unavoidable. Every time the Fed expands its balance sheet, it debases the currency. This isn’t an accident or a temporary policy error — it’s the core feature of the system.

If you’re wondering what comes next, look at the chart below—and note what followed the last time the Fed shifted from shrinking its balance sheet to expanding it.

We are now in the top of the first inning of what may become the most aggressive balance sheet expansion cycle in the Fed’s history.

Indicator #6: Money Supply

Imagine working 9 to 5 for 50 years, only for the Federal Reserve to print 40% of the money supply and inflate away 20 years of your hard work.

You don’t have to imagine—it actually happened during the COVID mass psychosis, as governments worldwide indulged in a frenzy of currency debasement.

I have no doubt that something like this or much worse will happen again soon.

Remember, the Fed has only two tools in its toolbox: currency debasement and gaslighting.

The skyrocketing interest expense forces the Fed to implement interest cost control policies, which inflate the money supply. These include buying Treasuries with money the Fed creates out of thin air and similar measures.

No matter what the Fed calls it, the only way they can try to control interest costs is to inflate the money supply.

However, that is ultimately self-defeating because it creates inflation, which causes bond investors to demand high interest rates to compensate for.

Regardless, the Fed inflates the money supply anyway in a misguided attempt to control interest costs because that is the only thing it can do.

The long-term average YoY change in the money supply is 6.8% per year.

Indicator #7: Consumer Price Index

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is the most politically manipulated statistic in all of government. That is saying something because many government statistics are completely manipulated, but inflation, as measured by the CPI, is probably the most manipulated.

The CPI is a basket of prices trying to measure the average price changes for 340 million Americans.

It’s an impossible task because every individual has a different price basket. Consider someone who lives in New York City compared to someone who lives in rural Montana. They have totally different price baskets.

Using the CPI as a measure of price increases for 340 million people is even more preposterous than taking the average temperature across 50 states in the US as a meaningful statistic to determine what clothes you should wear today.

Further, the government gets to cherry-pick what items go in the CPI basket and their weightings. It’s like letting a student grade his own paper.

In short, the CPI is misleading government propaganda intended to conceal the government’s atrocious currency debasement.

All that being said, it is useful to monitor the CPI, not as a meaningful metric to gauge inflation, but as a metric to analyze the Fed’s actions and gaslighting.

Indicator #8: The Gold Price

Gold is mankind’s most enduring form of money—for over 5,000 years—because of its unique characteristics that made it best suited to store and exchange value.

Gold is durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, scarce, and most importantly, the “hardest” of all physical commodities.

In other words, gold is the one physical commodity that is the “hardest to produce” (relative to existing stockpiles) and, therefore, the most resistant to debasement.

Gold is indestructible, and its stockpiles have built up over thousands of years. That’s a big reason why the growth of new gold supply—typically 1-2% per year—is insignificant.

In other words, nobody can arbitrarily inflate the supply.

That makes gold an excellent store of value and gives the yellow metal its superior monetary properties.

People in every country of the world value gold. Its worth doesn’t depend on any government or any counterparty at all. Gold has always been an inherently international and politically neutral asset. This is why different civilizations around the world have used gold as money for millennia.

From a historical point of view, using fiat currency as money is a relatively new concept. As it fades, I expect people will rediscover the world’s premier money: gold.

This trend is already well underway.

I expect the price of gold, which is already hitting record highs, to soar as this all plays out.

These eight indicators all point in the same direction: more debt, more money printing, and more damage to the dollar’s purchasing power.

To see what this could mean for your financial future—and the three practical moves you can make now—I recommend reading a free special report I just published before the next stage of the crisis unfolds. Click here to get the free report now.

The post Is the Dollar Collapsing? 8 Key Indicators You Can’t Ignore appeared first on Activist Post.