“Mother Shipton predicted the dissolution of the Catholic Church under Henry VIII. She predicted the fall of Cardinal Wolsey, and the ascent of Queen Elizabeth. She forecast television and radio, ships made of iron, and arguably the California gold rush. But probably her most notorious prediction was that ‘The world to an end shall come, In eighteen hundred and eighty one.’ She was clearly off a bit on that one. Given the self-evident inaccuracy of forecasts of the end of days, their popularity does seem somewhat bewildering. … For as long as we’ve been working in the capital markets, there have also been sceptics warning of the demise of the biggest bond and credit bubble in history. Like the boy who cried wolf, they have all been discounted, and (rightly) ignored. This time, however, they could finally be justified.” (12/04/25)
“‘Member DOGE? ‘Member the excitement that the year started out with? There was Elon with a buzzsaw. There was a righteous effort to shed $1 trillion—or maybe it was $2 trillion?—from the federal budget. If that strikes only a distant chord, maybe it’s because it’s been lost in all the other swirling promises with which Trump started his second term. There was going to be the annexation of Greenland …. And then the Panama Canal was going to be taken ‘back,’ as Trump vowed in his inaugural address, and then Canada was going to be the 51st state. These things do stick in one’s memory. What leaves less of an impression is the denouement—is the inglorious end of DOGE …” (12/05/25)
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Gregory Bresiger
“It’s a weekend in Pittsburgh and lots of people here and elsewhere around the country are waiting for a money-losing service called government transit. The system here, the same as many others throughout the nation, has two speeds—slow and slower. People search on their cellphones for when the buses are coming. Yet the system’s updates are often misleading. Buses never seem to come in the predicted time. Sometimes a promised bus—say one supposedly coming in ten minutes or less—will disappear from your cellphone. … I am not criticizing Pittsburg’s polite bus drivers who seem to suffer under the same problems as the riders: Their interaction with the incompetence of government reminds me of other government enterprises in other cities.” (12/04/25)
“Nearly four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion, one can perhaps be forgiven for a bit of wishful thinking when another peace proposal is introduced to end the war in Ukraine. Even if ‘tough concessions’ are demanded from the Ukrainians—isn’t it worth paying a high price to end the war? Perhaps, this time, we are finally on the brink of peace? That wishful thinking quickly comes to an end once you realise that the latest Russian ‘peace proposal’ is not a peace proposal at all. It is a set of demands designed to enable a complete Russian takeover of Ukraine, which would otherwise be impossible to achieve.” (12/04/25)
“‘As U.S. debt soars and foreign central banks stockpile gold,’ asserts a new article, ‘a U.S. senator today introduced a bill to require the first comprehensive audit of America’s gold reserves in decades.’ Reading the Mises Institute piece, I got a sense of déjà vu. … A ‘Gold Reserve Transparency Act’ has been introduced four times in the House since 2011, always by Republican sponsors aligned with sound-money advocates. But it has also never passed the House, let alone advanced to the Senate or become law.” (12/04/25)
“George Bernard Shaw famously observed that ‘England and America are two countries separated by the same language.’ It appears, however, that this chasm has finally been overcome by the common dialect of rage. The new word of the year was announced this week by the Oxford University Press and it is tragically apt: ‘rage bait’. First used in 2002, the new word is defined as ‘online content deliberately designed to elicit anger or outrage by being frustrating, provocative, or offensive, typically posted in order to increase traffic to or engagement with a particular web page or social media content’. … Rage is a curious emotion. It is the ultimate release. It allows you to do things and say things that you would not otherwise do or say. That is why it is addictive and contagious.” (12/04/25)
“That Kiev wants the American people to be ready to fight and die on its behalf is no surprise. Ukrainians have suffered greatly in a terrible war. Continuing combat is prodigiously consuming Ukrainian lives and wealth. However, alliances should be based on security, not charity. Although the conflict is a humanitarian tragedy, Ukraine’s future, and especially the details of any settlement, such as who controls the Donbas, are not vital U.S. concerns.” (12/04/25)
“Since January, Donald Trump has been conducting a large-scale experiment to probe all the ways presidential pardon power can be abused. He has granted pardons to his own co-conspirators in crime and insurrection. He has given pardons as rewards for campaign contributions or for business deals that benefit his family. He has given away pardons sometimes just because he feels the rich and famous should have a ‘get out of jail free’ card. And he has abused the pardon power to manipulate foreign elections and prop up right-wing authoritarians. It is possible there are more ways to abuse the pardon power than Trump has found so far, but we would be hard pressed to think what they would be.” (12/04/25)
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by US Senator Rand Paul (R-KY)
“In true Washington swamp fashion, this hemp ban is not being debated on its own. Once again, Congress created a crisis, then conveniently used the crisis to jam through new laws without debate.” (12/04/25)
