“With the Third Gulf War raging since late February, the prophecies of economic doom have been rolling in ever since. Iran’s economy is predicted to shrink by nearly 10% this year, while forecasts for growth in the Gulf nations are expected to fall from 4.4% in 2025 to 1.3% in 2026. It’s estimated that the Middle East’s tourism industry alone is losing $600 million a day through lost visitor spending. The global fallout has also seen projections of misery for all. … But there are an ever-growing number of thinkers and the historical evidence to back them up that point to major crises – wars, depressions, state collapses – often being followed by unusually strong growth.” (04/30/26)
“As Dr. Anthony Fauci’s right-hand man, David Morens, was charged this week with conspiracy and destruction of federal records in the COVID-19 cover-up, another scandal over the vaccine was unfolding on Capitol Hill. According to a new Senate report and congressional testimony on Wednesday, Biden administration health officials deliberately ignored warning signs of possible serious reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine, including heart attacks, strokes, Bell’s palsy and sudden cardiac death. … when the FDA’s senior medical officer, Dr. Ana Szarfman, whose job was to monitor the vaccine data for warning signs, repeatedly raised the alarm throughout 2021, she was ignored, and emails show her colleagues tried to stop her from using a newer, more accurate statistical methodology to investigate the data.” (04/29/26)
“Trump will never face the voters again. But for him to be discredited so widely is to help ensure that the Trump line of would-be MAGA heirs ends with him.” (04/30/26)
“The Department of Justice does not need to wait for Dr. David Morens to turn on his colleagues; the evidence to charge the next key advisor to Dr. Anthony Fauci is already in the public record. Greg Folkers was critical to the censorship operation at the heart of the Covid response. As Chief of Staff at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Folkers oversaw operations for the agency’s $6 billion budget and later sought to evade FOIA requests by conspiring with Dr. Morens and intentionally misspelling key phrases such as ‘g#in-of-function.'” (04/30/26)
“More than four months after Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin announced that he was breaking his promise to release its autopsy report on the 2024 election, the decision remains highly controversial. Arguments swirl around whether it’s wise to proceed without public scrutiny of what went wrong during the last presidential campaign. But scant attention has focused on how hiding the autopsy provides an assist to Kamala Harris, who currently leads in polling of Democrats for the party’s 2028 nomination. As Harris eyes another run, she has a major stake in the DNC continuing to keep the autopsy under wraps — and has a lot to lose if it reaches the light of day. She must feel gratified when Martin defends keeping the autopsy secret, saying that the party should not ‘relitigate’ the 2024 election and claiming that release of the 200-page document would result in ‘navel-gazing.'” (04/30/26)
“While none at the 1791 Battle of Wabash knew it, what was then ‘the most decisive defeat in the history of the American military’ would serve as the foundation of modern congressional oversight authority. The investigation, which focused on the conduct of American General Arthur St. Clair and the events that led to the deaths of 650 American soldiers, was unlike anything Congress had undertaken before, in part because it was not entirely clear that Congress could attempt it at all.” (04/30/26)
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Cláudia Ascensão Nunes
“The United Kingdom has oil in the North Sea. But it chose not to think about this resource in the long term, treating it as a temporary source of revenue rather than an opportunity to build lasting wealth. Already in the 1970s, it was clear to some economists that North Sea oil represented such a unique opportunity.” (04/30/26)
“Since President Donald Trump took office, the Securities and Exchange Commission has made it harder for small and activist investors to raise concerns through the government filing system known as EDGAR. Now they’re pushing back with their own alternative platform, which they call the Proxy Open Exchange — or POE. Literary puns aside, the initiative is aimed at bringing greater transparency to an increasingly restricted space. In January, the SEC said it would no longer allow investors with less than $5 million in shares to use EDGAR to send communiqués called exempt solicitations to fellow shareholders.” (04/30/26)
“Over the course of a single century, Sweden lost all four of its greatest international figures to assassination or state violence: Raoul Wallenberg, the diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest; Folke Bernadotte, the first United Nations Mediator in Palestine; Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary-General; and Olof Palme, Cold War prime minister and voice for global peace and nuclear disarmament. In each case the trail points toward a foreign state actor. In each case Sweden looked away. It seems strange when Sweden itself has been so peaceful. That none of the deaths was ever satisfactorily resolved says a great deal about how the Swedish state failed to follow through on the consequences of being a so-called moral superpower.” (04/30/26)