Debt Rattle August 25 2026

Two systems are before the world, part 1 of 3
We’re experiencing the conflict between two systems of governance. Understanding what that means could be the most important knowledge we need today.
Alex Krainer
Aug 23, 2026

This is part 1 of a 3-part report on the subject which, to my mind, could be the most important subject matter for us to learn about. The better we can understand it, the brighter the future we can leave behind for future generations, and the less likely that we’ll fall into old, false dichotomies calculated for the divide-and-rule effect. The YT video below unites parts 1 and 2. Part 3 will be published soon.

For all the “AI slop” experts out there, the video is 0% AI-generated (only the thumbnail was done with AI).

Over the recent years, I’ve repeatedly referred to the continuing global geopolitical upheaval as a conflict between two systems of governance. In fact, many Western leaders refer to it in those terms, usually characterizing the conflict as a clash between open societies and closed societies, or between democracies and autocracies. However, these are self-serving misrepresentations.

One conflict, many battlefronts
In reality, the conflict is between the Western colonialist system and anyone who rejects its demand for subjugation to the imperial hegemon. If we wish to understand the current events in the world and how they fit together, it is extremely important that we correctly identify the fault lines in this conflict, and the true nature of the two opposed systems of governance.

Once we gain that clarity, it becomes much easier to see that the war in Ukraine, war against Iran, genocide of the Palestinian people, the buildup to the war on China, the uncontrolled migrations and many other social, political and economic crises are all merely different battlefields of the same great conflict.

In his letter to Ephesians, Paul warned that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual wickedness in high places. We can also say that we struggle against a system that wields those powers and supports those principalities, their darkness and their spiritual wickedness.

The conflict’s geopolitical manifestations are today relatively easier to discern, but its roots lay in the two systems’ economic foundations, which determine the nature and the conduct of the opposed systems.

Understanding the difference between the two economic systems is so important that our ruling establishments went out of their way to scrub this knowledge from the economics curriculum so thoroughly, that it was almost completely lost. The very fact that I was able to put this report together is something of a gift and before signing off, I will spend a moment to address the question of how we know what we know, and who deserves credit, or even a monument for rescuing this knowledge from oblivion.

Stand and deliver: free trade or your life!
So, what are these two opposed systems of economic governance? One is the British system of free trade. The other is the national system of political economy. It is often referred to as the American system because it was pioneered by American leaders like Alexander Hamilton, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, and Lincoln’s chief economic advisor Henry C. Carey.

In a nutshell, the national system seeks to create protective barriers to foreign trade in order to give the domestic manufacturing a fighting chance against foreign competition. It also accumulates capital at home, investing it into manufacturing, infrastructure, education, research and development, innovation, culture and other uses that raise the society’s living standards.

By contrast, the British system of free trade extracts wealth and concentrates it: it seeks to remove all barriers to worldwide free flow of capital, always in pursuit of highest possible returns. With free trade, nations are obliged to compete for investment capital by systematically depressing wages, job security, pensions, health care services and education.

Other costs which cut into the returns on capital are infrastructure development, social spending programs and protection of the environment. Therefore, competing globally for investment capital entails progressive slashing of all these cost items, down to the bare bones. In that sense, British free trade system amounts to a competitive race to the bottom.

In his 1851 book titled, “The Harmony of Interests,” Abraham Lincoln’s economic advisor Henry Carey contrasted the two systems, opening with the words, “Two systems are before the world…”

Carey’s prose is rather long, but it could be summarized along seven key dimensions:

1. Trade vs. production: one system directs labor and capital toward trade and speculation. This tends to depress wages and erode prosperity. The other system fosters production of goods, services and infrastructure. It leads to higher wages and rising standards of living.

2. Raw materials vs. finished goods: one system favors mass production of raw materials and cash crops for wholesale trade. It systematically impoverishes farmers and reduces their employment. The other system favors production of more refined, high quality products, enriching their producers.

3. Exporting produce vs. enjoying it at home: one system sends mass produced bulk abroad, sometimes even causing famines in the producing economy. The other system organizes labor to satisfy domestic demand and produce an abundance of diverse, high quality products at home.

4. Concentration vs. dispersion of wealth: one system concentrates wealth and power in few hands, in great commercial cities while depleting and impoverishing the rest of the nation; the other system enriches those engaged in production and disperses wealth more evenly across society.

5. Military spending vs. moral and intellectual growth: one system compels the productive sector to fund fleets and armies; the other directs the same means for moral and intellectual growth of the people in their own nations.

6. Stable communities vs. population replacement: one system requires a large, low-skilled labor force that accepts work with low wages. It predictably resorts to mass influx of migrants. The other system raises the standards of living, prosperity and security of the native labor force.

7. Universal war vs. universal peace: one system gives rise to universal forever wars; the other strives to preserve peace.

Let’s condense these seven points further: one system favors production of raw commodities in bulk. It lowers living standards, concentrates wealth in few hands, impoverishes the workforce and favors population replacement, militarization and forever wars. This is the British system of free trade.

The other system favors production of diverse, quality products at home, enriches their producers, raises living standards, disperses wealth, fosters stable communities and favors stability and peace. This is the national system of political economy, or the American system. Its aspiration is sovereignty and independence. Free trade system’s aspiration is globalization and unipolar hegemony.

The contrast between the two systems could not be any starker, and the record entirely validates the way Henry Carey characterized them, as we’ll see from actual historical examples where one system or the other was implemented, and from the ways they changed the societies in question.

First, we’ll look at the effects of the British free trade system through the example of its mothership, the British Empire. We won’t need many other examples, since the whole developed world gradually adopted the free trade system over the last five decades. Its effects are discernible everywhere around us today, including economic decline, eroding standards of living, disappearance of the middle classes, uncontrolled migrations, as well as perpetual wars. The free trade system always produces these same symptoms, just as Henry Carey described them.

We’ll also examine the effects of the national system through examples of the post-revolutionary United States, late 19th century Germany, and post-war Italy. In a separate report, we’ll add the fourth and perhaps most spectacular case, which is modern China.

How free trade destroyed the British Empire
Free trade system is the economic and intellectual heritage of European colonial empires. It was refined and perfected by the stewards of the British Empire. After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at Waterloo in 1815, Britain eliminated its greatest European rival and was now in position to consolidate its power globally and lay the groundwork for a unipolar global order under her own dominance.

Only one year after Waterloo, on 22nd June 1816, British parliament enacted a law declaring gold to be the sole measure of value in the Empire. The ensuing scramble for gold largely shaped British foreign policy over the following eight decades. Its imperative was to ensure that the newly mined gold from Australia, California and South Africa flowed into the vaults of the Bank of England while denying the same, as much as possible, to all other nations, including the United States.

That required establishing naval supremacy across the world’s oceans. Britain’s dominance in shipping, maritime insurance and control over key ports, trade routes and maritime chokepoints enabled her to limit other powers’ access to global markets. British ships carried gold and silver, as well as steel, coal and other commodities from her colonies back to England while the products of English industries sailed to foreign markets around the world.

In the process, Britain accumulated the world’s largest hoard of monetary gold. Indeed, the stunning success of this colossal-scale looting operation also shaped Britain’s internal economic and social policies. The program was working or, at least it was working for the British ruling classes, so it had to be enshrined, protected and defended.

In 1820, under the influence of a powerful group of London merchants and bankers concentrated around the Bank of England, British parliament passed a Statement of Principle in support of so-called “absolute free trade.” The idea was formulated a few decades earlier by the Scottish economist Adam Smith and a banking oligarch, David Ricardo.

Under this system, Britain’s bulging accumulation of capital would not be squandered on domestic economic development or improvements for the ordinary British people. Instead, it would be invested into enhancing the original looting operation by expanding Britain’s colonial conquests and global free trade.

In 1843, some 23 years after absolute free trade was enshrined as the empire’s official policy, its main beneficiaries founded a weekly propaganda journal, The Economist, whose explicit purpose was to promote and reinforce the intellectual foundations supporting the free trade system.

The Ecoonomist: FREE-TRADE JOURNAL
In large part, this was necessary to prepare the grounds for an assault on British workers and their communities. Namely, depressing the cost of labor was part and parcel of the free trade system, so any protections that British workers and farmers enjoyed, had to be eliminated. Britain’s domestic markets would have to be opened wide to cheap imports from around the world, which crushed local producers and devastated the domestic economy.

Crushing British farmers
For example, in 1846, the Parliament repealed the so-called “Corn Laws,” which had protected British farmers from foreign imports. After their repeal, African or Hindu farmers, working for slave-level wages, could compete against British and Irish farmers for the market of British “consumers.”

The result was that the prices of produce, wage levels and living standards in Britain began to collapse and the society started to rot from within. This is particularly relevant today as President Trump just announced a “deal” to allow imports of up to 300,000 tons of ground beef at 25% below US market prices. The deal will deal quite a blow to the American farmers, as cheap imports did to the British and Irish farmers after 1846.

A contemporary writer, one Joseph Kay, observed these developments and in the early 1850s and described Britain as the place,

“Where the aristocracy is richer and more powerful than [in] any other country in the world, the poor are more oppressed, more pauperized, more numerous in comparison to the other classes, more irreligious and very much worse educated than the poor of any other European nation…”

Of course, the “free trade” system did have its winners. They were the ship owners, merchants, large industrialists and bankers who reaped enormous profits from all the global trade. This colonialist “aristocracy” didn’t question the “success” of their system. They pursued it further and defended it with a growing zeal and avarice.

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Industrial-scale looting
They subjected their colonial possessions in India, China and Africa to increasingly ruthless looting, and the wealth they extracted flowed in prodigious amounts to fund new looting operations in places like Argentina, Brazil and the United States, if only in a more refined form. The old systems of bondage gave way to new systems. Instead of military conquest and chains, the new and improved system was forged with instruments of debt and reinforced with some gunboat diplomacy.

For their new colonial possessions, Britain’s financiers issued credit to develop mines and plantations, and to build railroads and ports needed to move their products and load them onto ships. In the process, they saddled the local economies with massive amounts of debt. Servicing those debts would keep the colonies impoverished and chronically underdeveloped.

For example, during the 1880’s, Argentina’s new ports and railroads enabled her to move large quantities of beef and wheat for export, but at the same time her external debts to London bankers increased by 700%. This was the new & improved, “imperialism on the cheap,” as one columnist tagged it at the time.

The need for “security”
Of course, the stunning “success” of Britain’s colonial business model didn’t go unnoticed by her potential rivals, so to protect this looting operation from any aspiring competitors or pirates, more and more capital had to be invested in its security. In addition to building a large fleet of warships, the Empire evolved an elaborate and sophisticated security state, bringing together an extensive, revolving door network of intelligence agents, diplomats, heads of strategic industrial companies, leading merchants and City of London bankers.

In fact, British security state has evolved from those foundations to the present time. One example was Sir Charles Jocelyn Hambro, a prominent banker who sat as a director of the Bank of England from 1928 until his death in 1963. During WWII, he was the Chief Executive of the British secret intelligence agency, the Special Operations Executive (SOE) at the Ministry of Economic Warfare.

In the immediate aftermath of World War 2, Hambro and the SOE played the key role in developing a similar security state architecture in the U.S. including the formation of the Central Intelligence Agency and training up its leading talent – such nice people as William Casey, Charles Kindelberger, Walt Rostow and Robert Roosa. Incidentally, it was William Casey who said that, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

1857 bank panic and the 23-year Great Depression
At the façade, the British system seemed unassailable, but its internal rot, radical polarization of wealth and increasing allocation of that wealth to speculative ends and warfare, ultimately led to its collapse. As I mentioned above, London’s gold hoard was largely invested toward enhancing its colossal looting operation, into new ventures abroad.

As a result, the gold stored in London vaults wasn’t nearly sufficient to meet the ballooning claims against it. In 1857 a banking panic erupted, triggering a run on Bank of England’s gold reserves, which in turn collapsed bank credit across the country and precipitated an economic depression. As devastating as that was, it was only the beginning of Britain’s troubles.

The policies pursued by the City of London bankers weren’t concerned with the economic recovery for the nation. Instead, they obsessed about reversing the outflow of gold and returning the bullion into the vaults of London banks and the Bank of England. To achieve that, the bankers started raising interest rates.

The idea was to incentivize investors around the world to bring their gold back to England and exchange it for the interest-bearing financial instruments. In that sense, the policy was successful, but it came with a huge cost for the British economy and for the ordinary Britons.

High interest rates caused a wave of business bankruptcies and foreclosures. The financial bubble that emerged from speculation on railways construction in North and South Americas suddenly collapsed, and by 1873 Britain fell into The Great Depression which would last for 23 years, until 1896.

During that time, even though the British Empire was globally at the zenith of its power, the price levels in free trade Britain collapsed by nearly 50%, ruining farmers, destroying businesses at a mass scale, causing widespread and seemingly permanent unemployment and subjecting the British people to crushing poverty, homelessness and hopelessness. It was the stuff of Charles Dickens’ heart wrenching novels.

Free trade ruins every nation it touches
Sadly, much of this may ring familiar today because the free trade system produces the same symptoms of social decay wherever it is implemented. Again, those symptoms include economic stagnation, erosion of living standards, disappearance of the middle classes, impoverishment of workers and farmers, deterioration of the infrastructure, oppression of the people, population replacement and forever wars.

However, all these symptoms of economic and social decay are very much curable and the cure is perfectly well known: it is the national system of political economy, or the American system. Its earliest explicit implementation, at least in the modern times, goes back to Revolutionary America in the late 1700s.

To be continued…
In part 2 of this report, we’ll explore the experience and the results of implementing the national system in the United States during the 1800s; in Germany between 1873 and 1913; and in Italy after World War 2. As we’ll see, the outcomes were spectacular and radically different from those of the ruinous British free trade.

https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/two-systems-are-before-the-world

Krainer: good but may want a link not to post the whole thing. …I’m one to talk…

While all he’s saying is true about those systems, there are many more than one system, and either could be moral. National systems can be deeply immoral, or attack and extract their neighbors or whatever. They can also be immoral and unworkable internally. So take it as its own thing.

What he means here is VOLUNTARY vs Involuntary. Now they’re running a Con, and Arm-twisting, extorting, extracting on an uneven playing field which is essentally always backed up with VIOLENCE somewhere. “But India WANTS to trade with us!” Sure, or you’ll haul in the gunboats and shell the city. “Gunboat Diplomacy.” This is the same in Ohio: “But they WANT to sell milk under production cost and have no industry or banking in Akron.” No. They don’t. You made it illegal to do otherwise.

Now recently we’re talking about “The American System” and “The British (Un)Free Trade System”, but it’s because the American System is TRYING to do good for the PEOPLE, by intent, as a goal, that it works.

Think about it in those terms and it’s far clearer: What do we, they, us workers, want? To PRODUCE things. Why? Because we can SELL them at fair value, voluntarily, without shooting anyone. Then we go home and sleep safe and rested. It’s a self-solving problem. However, human nature being what it is, all nations — or rather people in them — immediately attempt to NOT work, and get an UN-Fair advantage. Until we have today’s nirvana, where the nation that produces the least, with the least voluntary exchange, like the World Reserve Currency, gets infinity goods for nothing.

Yeah, no. As anyone would guess, the STARK IMMORALITY of that instantly rots and decays YOURSELF. Them too, sort of, but they get stronger from Work. You get weaker from not-work. Until you’re both overwhelmingly immoral — as crime and violence pays — and also infinitely weak, hollow, and stupid. Crime doesn’t pay. You can’t cheat God. This is why it must be stopped, and also why it’s so difficult, same as other crime and addictions.

Thankfully, we very clearly ARE doing this, and attempting it right now, to replace extraction with honest work and voluntary exchange, and instead of commending us for cleaning up our meth addiction and crime-spree, everyone is suddenly piling on and tryign to STOP us from cleaning up and getting a day job. Both calling on every old debt that might be paid, but also ceaselessly reminding us what we did once and how we’re miserable pieces of s–t who will only fail and never amount to anything, why even try, and so on.

So thanks. As you might expect, this is not especially helpful for someone getting their life back on track EXACTLY AS YOU WANTED. So you didn’t really want it, did you? You prefer the nation to be a miserable, failing, collapsing empire that hurts everyone, because you can get your jollies pointing at them and feeling superior, INSTEAD of doing WORK where you and they are both cleaned up and the practical world just operates better and more fairly each day.

I’ll take the second, please. Thankfully, I never care in the slightest what other people say. But they could save their breath. It makes them look bad, petty, immoral, and in favor of both violence, evil and empire. No. We’ll stop Empire and be honest again, despite you, and despite every attempt to stop us.

Krainer is definitely missing this recently as he was very triggered by actions in Iran, and being Serbian, perhaps appropriately so. But that doesn’t make his analysis clear or right. He’s wrong on that one, even though I can understand why.

“Bessent Warns Countries Helping Iran Face Expulsion From Dollar System..”
can you think of a better way to grow BRICS and the separate settlement system being built by Russia and China?

Joe what is really desired to be hidden is that every foreign policy mistep and military failure post WWII is the result of the treason of the little bastard from Independence and Sullivan and Cromwell’s scheming barrister. With the passing of the National Security Act of 1947, and treacherous hearts, the two created the deep state from the ashes of The OSS with the help of the wartime financiers who created and funded WWII. The same type of idiot war mongers and aficionados of violence we read about here everyday bought into and promoted “Plausible Deniability”.
This bs that just now there are sinister characters attempting the destroy the United States system of governance is for those P.T. Barnum spoke about.

I have a question for you. Do you know anyone who is willing to alter their lifestyle to aid the return of the United States to “of, by and for’? Are you?
“Cracker only a crazy man would ask that question. That would be inconvenient”.
what do you get when you bitch, bitch, bitch? The opportunity to bitch, bitch bitch.
A toast to the memory of Sophie Scholl.

listen closely and you can hear Badfinger playing the theme song from the movie The Magic Christian

“Iran Torpedoes Trump” … With “Signals”. Using Verbs and adjectives. Several indirect clauses were sunk.

Note: the volume of “Words” is infinite; Iran will never run out of words. Reality is another matter.

“”You’re responsible for every rape, assault, and tragedy caused by illegal migrants. Since you invited them into Europe. You should go to prison.”

I’m totally down with that, though not like Murder 2, it’s really more like “Reckless Endangerment” and “Wanton Disregard”, and only after some period where it becomes clear, but all predicates are very well-founded and well-substantiated. Maybe 3-5 years for all of them? Or possibly you could make a dozen similar cases and call 3-5 for each of them? But totally true, legal, and just.

“Still can’t believe that The New York Times ADMITTED & PRINTED that the “conspiracy theorists” were right about COVID and that Fauci and the “experts” LIED to the public”

They do that because they know that at this point in the Propaganda Cycle they will completely deny it and it will have no effect on their actions or subsequent beliefs. No calls for Fauci to jail or apologies to everyone, with re-instatement of Doctors in Texas who were right all along. With paid reparations for legal and financial harm. 4 years back-pay for instance?
Nothing matters unless they pay. With money or with jail. Nothing will be learned and no behavior will change without stiff punishment we all point at and fear.

“Iran’s head of national security, however, said the country will “retaliate in a seismic manner” to any sanctions and will consider any country supporting sanctions to be committing an act of war.”

As above, 1) Iran used Words. 2) Iran declares war on essentially every nation on earth. Wow. Hope that works out for you as a peaceful, victim nation. So we can expect bombings in Uruguay next?

“Iran’s top civilian officials are publicly urging an end to the ongoing conflict with the United States, exposing a deepening internal rift”

Why is there a rift? The Civilian Government is the true legal ruler of Iran, right? No? So it’s not the Mullahs? No? Not the Army either, not business? So of the 4-5 groups, only ONE, the IRGC is the true, actionable rulers, the only one taking “Action”, and by that action, directing and speaking for all of Iran against Iran’s wishes? Huh. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

Again, this is the same as the CIA attempts here, MI6 probably has been able to accomplish, and the ISS and others definitely do elsewhere. — It’s not an Iran thing. It’s a “It’s one Big Club” thing.

““It is better that we demonstrate our strength and dignity today and tell the world that we have won and that we are ending the war.”

Tell yourself whatever you have to, man. Wait: Isn’t this what they just said TRUMP was saying? Hold on: that can’t be true for BOTH nations! Yet the Leader of Iran is openly admitting it, and the Leader of the U.S. is expressly denying it. Must be the #Opposite then. It’s Opposite Day again.

“• The Democrats Are in a Trap of Their Own Making (Eric Florack)

How long have we been telling them and getting tired of telling them? 20 years? That you started the Bernie Bros, you couldn’t screw the Bernie Bros — Twice in a row! — and have nothing happen. Again, they thought they needed just ONE election, a few percent, then the Hillary NeoLibs would get in, use them as Brownshirts, and kill them all after they killed us. …The White Hats MADE them think that was what they needed, what was possible, leading them along by a few percent that they would win. “Appear weak where you are strong” – Sun Tsu. The White Hats sadly ARE a desperate minority, no more than the 3% Washington had, and are fighting using the same tactics. …Because they work. So they constantly lure the Black Hats into overextending and revealing the jack booted, goose-stepping mass-murdering crazies they actually are. Then the people go “Whoa!” and few more flip.

So this is not an accident on any side. But Establishment Democrats could have just 1) Had values and principles 2) Helped people 3) Lost that one election in order to reform and fix themselves 4) Got on track and purged mass-murdering crazies. No one MADE them do it. They were welcome to come clean at any time including now.

They still can’t. And they can’t because they ARE Authoritarian Socialist Crazies, that’s how their minds experience the world. Meddle and MAKE people do what they’re told. And this does not work. They can’t purge the DSA because the DSA just does it more better than they do.

This may not be worth the effort, but ShoeOnHead has a clip in this vid where the Democrats/DSA solution to “Banning Thanksgiving” is not to do it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cjp7zNvnZ7g Wait: Of course not! Their whole comment section is to “Just Lie” to the American people. Who are saps who won’t mind that at all and come for you. Taqqiya. Just Lie! Side of the angels. Because what you’re planning is so wonderful you just have to lie about it!

Uhhh…what then? What happens when you’re in power and the people find out? Hahahaha! POWER!!! We will MAKE them! Make them all payyyy!!!

Yeah, no, no good end comes from this. It looks like, but it doesn’t. Admiral Ackbar, It’s a trap.

Anyway, Piker, yeah “Let the Streets run red with Capitalist blood” meaning “All of us.” You. Do you own a toothbrush? Then you too. And btw Piker is a foreign multi-millionaire. He drives a $200,000 Porsche as Socialists do. (no I am not kidding. Why bother?) Eat the Rich, man. Rules are for thee, the little people, the Proles.

“• West Will Never Get Its ‘Loans’ Back From Kiev – ex-Ukrainian PM (RT)

This is not future: Nations, eg England, use British tax dollars to support Ukraine, which Ukraine uses to pay back hundred billion in loans. Cut to the chase here: Starmer robs Leeds, sends $6B at a pop taxpayer money directly to George Soros and Jacob Rothschild. That’s it. 1) Rob taxpayers 2) Give to Oligarchs. 1-2. Nothing else at all is going on, all eyewash. Sure they murdered a couple people on the side, but only as a cheap distraction.

“• Zelensky Says Wartime Elections Would ‘Destroy’ Ukraine (ZH)

Yes, if the money stopped flowing from the Chip Shop on Tynemouth to Ukraine, so that 99% of it goes to the Orsini Family, then Ukraine WILL collapse. Because it doesn’t exist now, and had no point except money laundering from the desperately poor to the super-wealthy. Organizations that have no point go out of business. The point is THEFT.

“• Canada Chooses Climate Change, Censorship, and China (J.B. Shurk)

Like other Globalists, Carney fails at everything he touches.

“• Loonie Limps Lower As Trump Unleashes (More) Tariffs (ZH)

Just like being fair about the Dollar, not sold, doing great at .99 thank you, so the Loonie is .72 to the dollar, same as a very long term level. Now that sucks moose balls, there’s no reason it should be that low except their punishing, unrelenting anti-business actions, but it’s not different either. Canada could be Sweden or Switzerland, making fewer but great, specific high-quality high-price goods if they wanted. Or be Norway and pump the s—t out of their oil while claiming global warming and how they’re morally superior when really they’re just rich on blowing their oil trust fund. But Canada wants to get screwed on all fronts and not just pretend to be moral the way Scandinavia does. I mean, Sweden still makes attack jets! They haven’t sold their heritage like Volvo completely yet. Why not Canada? You’re at least 10x more able to do this than Nokia. Nope. The Hate of Profit and all Work is just too much.

“If Mike Froman is correct, Mark Carney chose China.”

Maybe. But that means they’re not sovereign. Carney is just choosing which protectorate to obey. Don’t do this. So all his talk is as hollow as expected.

“Chinada” But they say the U.S. is obeying China! So everyone is all on one side, in One Big Club, and they’re all fighting too??

Bob Woodward wasn’t a journalist. He was a Naval intelligence officer”

So it was CIA Mark as Derp Throat, CIA/Navy “Plumbers” and CIA journalists. But it warn’t no coup or nothin’.

Nixon accepted the coup to avoid getting shot, not because he was afraid, but because the White Hat mission lost that round and could continue on…to today.

“Elon Musk refused to let Ukraine use Starlink for attacks inside Russia. He prioritizes ending the war, not expanding it.”

False. While mixed and I appreciate it, you can’t just let one side have it. That’s being IN the war, and as per Everything Elon does is Derp State. Everything. Boring, Space, even universal surveillance and control of robotaxis as seen in “Minority Report”. Everything right back to PayPal. With Thiel and Dorsey.

They are way more dangerous than Russia, China, Iran, or Israel.

So Buddhists and many other like-minded thinkers would see Life ss a really big Recycling Operation, in which case I would be curious to know where in the “Cycle” I’m supposed to be, because it sure does feel like the bottom of the bin.

• This reply was modified 2 weeks, 3 days ago by D Benton Smith.

Shooting Blanks https://drjohnsblog.substack.com/p/shooting-blanks

Some of looking at the current progression of history see a crisis of declining empire, hastened by large scale financial speculation on wars and conquests that became money pits instead of meal-tickets. This empire looks different to various eyes, but I see global finance as being it’s functional core, extracting wealth of nations wherever the imperial currency is invested and spent. This financial center was formerly in The City of London, though it is now also in New York, Frankfurt, Paris and Tel Aviv, as well as other outposts. It is a unified control system for global “free-trade” which invests in extracting valuable resources from every country, enriching pliant elites and global financiers. Various militaries and covert operations form enforcement arms.
This ravenous system consumes natural resources and spends the profits to consume exponentially more. The world is now at the limit of that process, which is causing existential clashes ahead of the financial crisis of an exponential debt bubble imploding, pricked by the reality of declining physical wealth to service it.
It is not the case that human needs cannot be met for the rest of our lives by the material goods still available on our fair planet, but they cannot be met by the present colonialist free-trade system that extracts, impoverishes and enforces its mandate violently wherever it goes.
Alex Krainer presents the case that the world is faced with 2 systems, the colonialist system, and the “American system” described in 1861 by Abraham Lincoln’s chief economic advisor Henry C. Carey. It served the United States and Germany in that century, and served postwar Germany and Japan in the 20th century, now China in the post-Mao era.
Operation Economic Outcast threatens to permanently expel from the $US global financial system, any “entity” that trades with Iran, helping to bypass economic sanctions. Expelling China, Russia, India, Pakistan and perhaps Turkey from the $US financial system would certainly teach Iran a lesson.
I am struck by the whimsical thought that the best way to rob a bank is to own one, and by extension, the best position from which to collapse an empire may be that of the ruler of the empire, through hubris, or perhaps the subtle-paradox of presenting the appearance of hubris to accomplish that end.. You decide. 😉

Alex Krainer, Two systems are before the world, part 1 of 3
We’re experiencing the conflict between two systems of governance. Understanding what that means could be the most important knowledge we need today…
..In a nutshell, the national system seeks to create protective barriers to foreign trade in order to give the domestic manufacturing a fighting chance against foreign competition. It also accumulates capital at home, investing it into manufacturing, infrastructure, education, research and development, innovation, culture and other uses that raise the society’s living standards.
By contrast, the British system of free trade extracts wealth and concentrates it: it seeks to remove all barriers to worldwide free flow of capital, always in pursuit of highest possible returns. With free trade, nations are obliged to compete for investment capital by systematically depressing wages, job security, pensions, health care services and education.
Other costs which cut into the returns on capital are infrastructure development, social spending programs and protection of the environment. Therefore, competing globally for investment capital entails progressive slashing of all these cost items, down to the bare bones. In that sense, British free trade system amounts to a competitive race to the bottom. https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/two-systems-are-before-the-world

US launches Operation Economic Outcast to sever Iran’s financial ‘lifelines’
Directed by US President Donald Trump, the “unprecedented” sanctions target Iran’s “most vital lifelines,” including aviation, shipping, gold, technology, and digital assets, Bessent said.
Bessent warned that any entity facilitating money laundering for Tehran will be permanently removed from the US dollar system.
“I would expect that you will see a major announcement of a financial institution being sanctioned by the end of this week,” he further said without elaborating. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/us-israel-iran-war/us-launches-operation-economic-outcast-to-sever-irans-financial-lifelines/4036199

“Operation Economic Outcast” Begins: Bessent Warns Countries Helping Iran Face Expulsion From Dollar System https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/entering-endgame-bessent-unveil-economic-d-day-assault-isolate-iran

China Firmly Rejects US Demand To Back Its ‘Most Crushing Economic Operation’ Against Iran
Asked specifically about the latest comments of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Lin emphasized the need for all parties to take “responsible measures” in resolving the war. “China opposes illegal unilateral sanctions that have no basis in international law and are not authorized by the UN Security Council,” Lin said. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-firmly-rejects-us-demand-back-its-most-crushing-economic-operation-against-iran

Our lif-support systems run on diesel. Supplies are already short: Transport voyages take months. Gold & Geopolitics, Running on empty – Buffered calm
Heating oil and the “crack spread” is signaling something is amiss, but both Brent and WTI are massaged to not signal very much.
I’m foreseeing a major repricing, absent any real ceasefire, or EVEN with a real ceasefire, oil’s not going to run very soon.
Same story as with silver: huge deficit, above-ground vaults being run down. The big difference is that oil is a visible product. If it’s not there, everyone will notice.
So line up your calendars: Nov: midterms, Jan 27: no Russian gas for the EU, early Feb: Norway should finish their repairs. And through all this time, the Red Sea and the Strait of Hormuz are blocked.
Yep, everything’s fine. The gov says so. https://no01.substack.com/p/running-on-empty

‘Perfect storm’ brews for global food supply this winter as grain prices soar https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/21/grain-price-russia-food-supply.html

Food Supply Alert: Ukraine Grain Exports Collapse As Black Sea Attacks Choke Global Shipments https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/food-supply-alert-ukraine-grain-exports-collapse-black-sea-attacks-choke-global

European Union on the Brink of Severe Food Crisis – It appears the EU food crisis is already beginning to take hold. With recent weather disasters caused by extreme heatwaves across the continent, local agricultural productivity is expected to plummet. This compounds an existing scenario of decline in the European agribusiness sector and sanctions against Russia – formerly a key supplier of agricultural goods to Europe. Now, European countries face the likely prospect of reduced food supplies alongside an exponential rise in prices. https://www.globalresearch.ca/eu-brink-severe-food-crisis/5937634

Martin Armstrong, The Strait of Hormuz Is Repricing the Entire World Economy
The more serious warning is coming from refined products, particularly diesel. Politicians obsess over crude because that is the price quoted every evening on television. Yet modern civilization runs on diesel. Trucks transport food and consumer goods, farmers operate machinery, construction companies run heavy equipment, and emergency generators protect hospitals and critical infrastructure. When diesel rises, the cost of virtually everything rises with it.
Governments will pretend that this inflation is temporary or caused by greedy corporations. They said the same thing after the monetary expansion of 2020. Inflation is never politically convenient because it exposes the true cost of government policy. A war financed through borrowing does not require politicians to present taxpayers with an immediate bill. The expense is transferred into sovereign debt, currency depreciation, and higher prices. The public pays through the destruction of purchasing power, while officials continue claiming that military operations can be conducted without domestic sacrifice…
..The Strait of Hormuz is becoming a tax imposed upon the entire world economy. It will appear in freight costs, food prices, utility bills, interest rates, government deficits, and eventually elections. Western leaders will blame Iran, corporations, speculators, or climate change before admitting that their endless wars carry an economic price. https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/world-trade/the-strait-of-hormuz-is-repricing-the-entire-world-economy/

What I am seeing is a piling of blame onto “Netanyahu” ahead of October elections “he” is expected to lose. I think “he” has been AI images and a body double since an early March Iranian missile strike. This could be a convenient transition: Alastair Crooke: Netanyahu’s réprise of the ‘Iraq WMD deceit’ – re-launched to promote war on Iran https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/08/15/netanyahus-reprise-of-the-iraq-wmd-deceit-re-launched-to-promote-war-on-iran/

This is particularly sly if Netanyahu is dead: Turkey Issues Arrest Warrant For Netanyahu, Seeks Interpol Red Notice https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/turkey-issues-arrest-warrant-netanyahu-seeks-interpol-red-notice

Poll Shows Voters Reject US-Israel Military Integration – 61% of respondents oppose legislation in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 that would integrate Israeli weapons companies into the Pentagon at a level exceeding that of any other country. That figure rose to 78% among Democrats and 73% among independents. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/poll-shows-voters-reject-us-israel-military-integration

Caitlin Johnstone, Our Entire Civilization Is Run By Oligarchs And Empire Managers
Zionists promote Islamophobia because convincing westerners to hate Muslims is easier than convincing them to like Israel.
This is a fact, not an opinion. Last year Drop Site News published a leaked polling report that had been commissioned by the Israeli government which found that while Israel’s reputation is crumbling throughout the western world, one way to salvage it would be to foment panic about Muslims.
Drop Site reports the following:
“Israel’s best tactic to combat this, according to the study, is to foment fear of ‘Radical Islam’ and ‘Jihadism,’ which remain high, the research finds. By highlighting Israeli support for women’s rights and gay rights while elevating concerns that Hamas wants to ‘destroy all Jews and spread Jihadism,’ Israeli support rebounded by an average of over 20 points in each country. ‘Especially once the situation in Gaza is resolved, the room for growth in all countries is very significant,’ the report concludes.”
So if you speak critically about Israel online and suddenly find your replies inundated with Zionists shrieking about Islam and Muslims, that’s why. Their research has concluded that convincing westerners to hate Muslims is easier than convincing them to love Israel. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/our-entire-civilization-is-run-by

A coverup: After More Than Two Years, Israel Admits to Firing on Car Carrying Five-Year-Old Hind Rajab and the Ambulance Sent To Rescue Her
Israel has admitted that its forces fired on a car that was carrying five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed by the IDF along with six members of her family as they were attempting to flee Gaza City on January 29, 2024.
Hind was the only survivor of an initial attack on the vehicle and was surrounded by six dead family members as she spent hours on the phone with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PCRS) pleading for help. The PCRS waited until it had authorization from the Israeli military to dispatch an ambulance to the area and send it along a route provided by the IDF’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
Despite the coordination with the IDF, once the two Palestinian paramedics arrived, they were fired on by Israeli tanks and killed. Hind was still alive after the blast that killed the paramedics and was speaking on the phone with her mother, but the PCRS lost contact with her shortly after. Nearly two weeks later, after the IDF withdrew from the area, the body of Hind, her six family members, and the paramedics, Yousef Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun, were recovered. https://news.antiwar.com/2026/08/19/after-more-than-two-years-israel-admits-to-firing-on-car-carrying-five-year-old-hind-rajab-and-medics-sent-to-rescue-her/

My Greek friend says that Greeks have come to detest the exceedingly rude and entitled Israeli tourists who visit. Greece’s alliance with Israel is becoming a domestic liability https://www.middleeasteye.net/big-story/greece-alliance-israel-becoming-domestic-liability

The EU Commission’s Secret Plan to Share EU Citizens’ Most Sensitive Data With Israel
For three years the Von der Leyen Commission has been secretly negotiating to hand over its citizens’ data to a state committing multiple genocides. The EU has run a mission in the West Bank to support the Palestinian Authority with policing since 2005. If the data sharing agreement goes ahead, the data collected by EU police missions operating in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip city and Rafah could be fed into Israel’s existing military surveillance systems.
The really twisted part, as Deaglan O’Mulrooney notes in an article for Washington University’s The Spectacle Mag, is that the EU’s own legal service declared the agreement unlawful in 2022. The Commission, in time-honoured fashion, carried on regardless:
The Council Legal Service concluded that the Commission had breached its negotiating mandate, violated EU treaty requirements, and failed to consult the relevant working group. The lawyers specifically objected to provisions that would allow data shared with Israel to be used in the occupied Palestinian territories, warning it would be the first time an international agreement between the EU and Israel would provide for its application to the territories occupied since 1967, and that it would violate the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination and breach international law. The Commission read all of this, noted it, and continued negotiating anyway.
The agreement was formally frozen in late 2022 following the legal objections. What Statewatch’s investigation reveals is that it did not stay frozen. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/08/the-eus-von-der-leyen-commission-is-considering-sharing-eu-citizens-most-sensitive-data-with-israels-genocidal-state.html

AIPAC Loses Yet Another House Race It Poured Millions of Dollars Into
AIPAC has lost yet another race into which it poured millions of dollars on Thursday after California state Sen. Aisha Wahab won her special election to serve out the rest of Eric Swalwell’s term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Associated Press called the race on Thursday evening for Wahab, who received 53 percent of the vote compared to Democratic opponent Melissa Hernandez’s 47 percent. Wahab is the first Afghan American ever elected to the U.S. Congress, and was the first Muslim woman elected to the California legislature.
Wahab is slated to serve out the rest of Swalwell’s term, which ends in January, after he resigned over sexual assault allegations made against him. She will represent a swath of the Bay Area, and will face off against Hernandez again in the general election in November for a full term.
AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project (UDP), poured $2.5 million into opposing Wahab and backing Hernandez, the New York Times reports, much of it in the final weeks of the race.
The spending has been somewhat puzzling, baffling even pro-Israel leaders in the state who question why the lobbying powerhouse would spend so much on a race that, unlike many others this election cycle, has not been defined by the candidates’ stances on the U.S.’s policies toward Israel. https://scheerpost.com/2026/08/23/aipac-loses-yet-another-house-race-it-poured-millions-of-dollars-into/

Simplicius, from 8/20/26, Plans Revealed for Massive Ukrainian Attacks Against Russian Airports, as Kiev Hit With Another Unstoppable Ballistic Swarm
In short, they wanted to plan a mass terror attack on Russian airports to completely shut down all civilian flights in and out of Moscow as a way to ramp up pressure and make Russian civilians in the capital city feel the consequences of the war.
The article claims Zelensky thought better of it, fearing that “accidentally” killing civilians would be seen as “piracy” at the hands of Ukraine.
By the middle of spring, the plan to force a more permanent shutdown of Moscow’s airports had advanced far enough to receive a code name: M&Ms, a reference to the many small, cheap, and nearly identical drones that the mission would require. To overwhelm Russian air defenses, the operation would need to send as many as 1,000 drones a night to airports in and around Moscow, said one of the sources familiar with it. The article details how it was ex-Defense Minister Fedorov that was responsible for driving the plan, but that even newly-appointed Yevhen Khmara is said to be carrying the reins forward…
..The article notes this tracks with Fedorov’s begging of Elon Musk to enable Starlink to be used over all of Russia. This gives us a general overview of what to expect from Ukraine in the coming months. https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/plans-revealed-for-massive-ukrainian

Gilbert Doctorow asks, Why did an 82,000 square meter warehouse in the Petersburg borough of Pushkin go up in flames yesterday? https://gilbertdoctorow.substack.com/p/why-did-an-82000-square-meter-warehouse

Trump has given Rubio free rein to break Cuba: US pummels Cuban economy with new sanctions on mining, construction
US economic restrictions have strained the island’s already fragile economy, prompting blackouts and medical shortages. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/20/us-pummels-cuban-economy-with-new-sanctions-on-mining-construction

Fishing and farming communities have no rights. Myanmar military offensive targets land for Russia-backed port project https://uk.news.yahoo.com/myanmar-military-offensive-targets-land-040139388.html

Trump says he will meet N. Korea’s Kim this year, puts N.K. nukes at 57 https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20260820000354315

Track any person anywhere in any car or on foot: Flock Has a Powerful New AI Tool for Police. We Got Its Code
Flock’s surveillance cameras have already sparked outrage. WIRED reconstructed its next-generation AI system, already in use by some police, to confirm it goes much further than tracking license plates. https://archive.is/lT86y#selection-727.0-731.202

AI was supposed to win people over by now — it hasn’t
A recent CNBC poll of 18- to 34-year-olds found that, when given the names of nine top leaders in the AI industry, a majority of the respondents said they don’t trust those people to “act responsibly” when it comes to AI. A May Economist/YouGov poll found that over 70% of Americans think AI is advancing too quickly… The underlying sentiment spanning these stories is that consumers don’t see how AI is making their lives better, but they’re still being asked to absorb the costs. https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/19/ai-was-supposed-to-win-people-over-by-now-it-hasnt/

Federal Appeals Court Rules In Favor Of James O’Keefe Over Undercover Reporting
A split panel of U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit judges said on Aug. 21 that a district court judge had erroneously kept in place $130,000 in damages against O’Keefe over an undercover operation that targeted Democratic strategists.
“The principal question in this appeal is whether the jury’s damages award violated the First Amendment by punishing the defendants for publishing a news story,” Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, writing for the majority, said. “We conclude that it did.”
The case was brought after Project Veritas released a video showing conversations with strategist Robert Creamer and other Democratic operatives, including discussions secretly recorded by Allison Maass, a Project Veritas reporter, while she spent eight days as an unpaid intern at the Democracy Partners firm in 2016. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/federal-appeals-court-rules-favor-james-okeefe-over-undercover-reporting

Spanish Beach Stormed As Ceuta Chaos Spreads https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/spanish-beach-stormed-ceuta-chaos-spreads

Goldbug Libertarian take,but still somewhat useful: The Six Nooses: How Interventionism Is Strangling The Family’s Will To Reproduce https://www.zerohedge.com/political/six-nooses-how-interventionism-strangling-familys-will-reproduce

I observe that the “healthcare” system now micro-abandons patients at every turn, discharging them without follow-up appointments or enough medicine. This fosters panic and bad outcomes. It is how the system is structured for incentives. I suspect it is reducing American life expectancy invisibly.
‘Utterly Unsustainable’: Employer-Sponsored Health Care Costs Set to Keep Surging , Posted on August 21, 2026 by Yves Smith
Yves here. While this article correctly calls out the cancerous growth in US health care costs, it sadly over-estimates the degree to which a Medicare-for-All program would be an effective counter. Consider the practice of the smaller drug buyer, the Australian Therapeutic Good Administration. TGA staffers read medical research relentlessly. They select, for most ailments, a single medication for treatment. They often reject the latest whiz bang improvements, such as a newer once-a-day slow release version versus a three-times-a-day original, because the newer formulations do not improve medical outcomes. But they do count as FDA “new drug applications” and allow for extension of patent life, as in preserving premium pricing. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/08/utterly-unsustainable-employer-sponsored-health-care-costs-set-to-keep-surging.html

Chemicals in Home Products Are Spiking Breast Cancer Rates
Under HHS Secretary Kennedy, the FDA is finally taking a hard look at chemical compounds in makeup, shampoo, laundry detergent and more.
The average American woman applies 168 different chemicals to her body every day, according to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), which surveyed thousands of people in 2004 about the personal care products they use. https://www.themahareport.com/p/chemicals-in-home-products-are-spiking

I’m taking my ball and going home.

To be so petulant in dealing with adversity, loss, or rejection that one quits or leaves abruptly, often disrupting other participants.

“Bessent Warns Countries Helping Iran Face Expulsion From Dollar System..”

• “Operation Economic Outcast” Begins (ZH)
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/entering-endgame-bessent-unveil-economic-d-day-assault-isolate-iran
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The Truthtellers know …

The EU keeps providing “loans” to Ukraine despite knowing that its government will never repay them, the country’s former prime minister, Nikolay Azarov.

“loans and Western assistance that amounts to about three-fourths of the state budget of Ukraine are covering the budget deficit, funding arms purchases and sponsoring the Nazi terrorist and corrupt regime.”

“And this causes some irritation among EU bureaucrats because they understand that the money of the American and European taxpayers is being embezzled in a very outrageous manner,”

The claims that Kiev will reimburse the US and EU because “Russia will pay some kind of reparations someday… are just fairy tales.
You have to be really short-sighted to believe these fairy tales,” Azarov stressed.
“No one will give this money back to the West.
There’s $275 billion of Ukrainian debt, you cannot pay it back,” he added.

————
Let the bond market speak – Bessent – By Stanley F. Druckenmiller

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/investment/druckenmiller-calls-out-bessent-on-bond-market-meddling-you-will-lose/ar-AA2aSEOl?ocid=BingNewsSerp

Why Stan Druckenmiller is right about the bond market–and Warsh knows it
Story by Martin Baccardax

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s attempt to browbeat the long end of the U.S. bond market, through a mixture of targeted buybacks and broader criticism, has drawn a stern reply from one of his earliest mentors.

It also has created a new headache for Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh.

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Canada’s counter tariffs
https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/programs/international-trade-finance-policy/canadas-response-us-tariffs/complete-list-us-products-subject-to-counter-tariffs.html

Complete list of U.S. products subject to counter tariffs
Updated list of U.S. products subject to counter tariffs effective September 8, 2026

These new countermeasures on $27.6 billion in products imported from the U.S. will be effective as of 12:01 a.m., September 8, 2026.

The new targeted counter tariffs are concentrated in sectors such as steel and aluminum, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper, plastics, and electronics. In certain sectors, such as steel and aluminum, existing counter-tariffs will increase from 25 per cent to 50 per cent to match U.S. rates.

U.S. products subject to counter tariffs
Note: The tariff items listed below represent U.S. products subject to counter tariffs. The included Harmonized System headings and descriptions are for illustrative purposes.

The list of products outlined at the tariff item level should be read in conjunction with the Schedule to Canada’s Customs Tariff.

The consolidated list below is prepared for information purposes only and has no official sanction.

Tariff resources
Find the tariff applicable for your product | Canada Tariff Finder
Canada’s Customs Tariff
Guide to tariff classification for Canadian imports
Canadian Export Classification
Customs Notices
Tariffs, rules and regulations
Understanding CUSMA/USMCA compliance
Effective September 8, 2026
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@John_Day

I’ve been off in the wider world thinking deep thoughts, as usual. This time may have been a bit deeper than usual, though, which accounts for most of my absence. I ain’t all the way gone yet, though, by gum. Too ornery.

I get the automatic emails from your site once in a while, but no person-to-person email missive that I know of.

Take note D

All the growth in America’s wealth has taken the form of rising stock, bond, and real-estate prices, and almost all of it has accrued to the wealthiest ten percent—mainly the top one percent. The other 99 percent have had no increase at all in their wealth, while the bottom 40 percent run deeper and deeper into net debt every year.

Key take away:

The American economy is: CRIME.

Suffering pain is what the United States is trying to do to a lot of people