On Saturday, July 30, just after 9pm, thunderous explosions rocked central Donetsk. Shortly after, there were announcements that air defense had shot down Ukrainian-fired missiles containing ‘butterfly‘ (or ‘petal‘) mines. Given that over 300 of these explosives are packed into each of the Ukrainian-fired rockets, central Donetsk could literally become a minefield if they successfully landed.
Social media and Telegram warnings urged residents to stay inside and wait for Emergency Services to clear the streets and sidewalks – which they began doing during the night. But come daylight, untold numbers of these tiny devices still remained. More warnings were issued to stay at home – better to be late for work than lose a leg. Residents that absolutely have to go out are advised to keep their eyes down to watch where they step, avoid grassy areas, and walk extremely carefully.
While Ukraine has been using these mines on Donbass for many months, in recent days, they have intensely bombarded neighborhoods with them. Initially targeted were the hard-hit districts of Kievskiy in the north, Kirovsky in the southwest, and Kuibyshevkiy in the west. But as of Saturday night, Ukraine hammered central Donetsk with them.
And now, walking in the city center is a nightmare, one I had to endure to document how widespread these mines are here: in central streets and walkways, near apartments, in parks…
How does printing a $billion for yet another government program and making government bigger going to reduce inflation. Right! It won’t.
How will doubling the size of the IRS be of benefit to you? Right! It won’t.
Deciding that the proletariat are all honest taxpayers, giving the IRS nothing to do, ain’t gonna happen. Just as a district attorney’s job is to get convictions and will lose his/hers/it’s job if “they” don’t put people in jail…the IRS person won’t get promoted nor get to keep their job if they don’t put the hurt on a lot of people and collect a lot of fines. The bigger the fines the better. The more big time headlines of “offenders” handcuffed and entering the big house the better. “Look at us doing our job.”
I’ll bet they will have their own SWAT teams.
That grinding sound you hear is your, family’s and your friends names being engraved on the headsman’s ax.
If there is no growth in the money supply, prices and interest rates will best reflect the preferences of a society. An Austrian economics definition of capitalism is the interplay of supply and demand, without any growth in the money supply. In this form of capitalism individualism will never pay off. Profits can only be realized if people in society stand to benefit as well.
Many people blame capitalism for ever-increasing consumption, individualism, and the greedy pursuit of profits. Not very often do we see capitalism defined in any other way. In this article, I suggest an Austrian economics definition of capitalism that explains capitalism economically and without moralistic tones.
Human Actions Determine Prices and Interest Rates
The basis of Austrian economics price theory is human action. People must make choices on how to spend their scarce time and resources. They aim to improve their situation by ranking their subjective preferences and realizing as many of these preference, one by one.
This explains why the price of water is much lower than the price of diamonds. The supply of water is more than sufficient to meet almost all our needs. It is the last added unit of water that determines its price, which is many times lower than if the supply of water would satisfy the most important use only.
Interest rates are also a category of human action and are an indication of our time preference. This time preference applies to money and goods and services. A young society will be more inclined to save and invest than an older society. Their lower time preference translates into a lower interest rate as more money is offered for investing. Additional investments make it possible to expand the production structure.
By expanding a production structure, a society can consume more in the future. Consuming more can mean many things. If the purchasing power of people stays the same, but people only need to work three days a week instead of five days, people may still feel better off. Or, by investing we can produce similar goods, but with less pollution.
The interplay between interest rates and prices as they come about in a free marketplace, is shaping the production structure such that it meets the needs of society. The interplay of supply and demand could be termed capitalism. However, for a proper definition, more is needed.
What Money System Works Best?
The signaling function of prices and interest rates is distorted by central banks policies. Monetary policies prescribe that consumer goods prices must rise, according to the European Central Bank by “on average” 2 percent per year. Central banks find it unacceptable if a free market creates prices that are going down or do not rise sufficiently.
Central banks are creating money out of nothing, aiming to stimulate demand. More money means more competition for the same amount of goods, with upward price pressures as a result. Banks and central banks jointly issue more credit than what would be possible by savings alone. The additional offer of money pushes the interest rates down. The balance that prevailed in the time market is artificially disturbed.
Initially, money growth will ‘be good for the economy.’ More money is available for investing at a lower interest rate. It is as if the market has given a signal that people in society want to consume more in the future. However, consumers did not signal any change in consumption preferences.
There will come a time when the artificially low interest rate tends to rise, and prices adjust reflecting people’s actual preferences. Producers will be faced with rising production and refinancing costs. After the boom a bust will naturally follow.
The best money system is one that best reflects the preferences of people in society. This will be the case if there is no growth in the money supply. The Austrian school describes this as a sound money system. A proper definition of capitalism would then be the interplay of supply and demand, without any growth in the money supply.
The Democrats are far more experienced at stealing elections than Republicans. Democrat control of big city political machines is prime training ground for corruption. The Biden regime has used the weaponized Department of Justice to block the efforts of states to return integrity to voter rolls and procedures.
The Democrats in power in Washington have weaponized the FBI and Department of Justice (sic) in an effort to criminalize President Trump. They tried this with Russiagate, with impeachment, with their fabricated January 6 Insurrection, and now they have sent an army of FBI agents into Trump’s home, relying on the presstitutes to tell a story of deep, dark, suspicious activities by Trump.
The Democrats have become so bold because Republicans, with few exceptions, are not fighters. Republicans come out of the business world where the rule is “don’t rock the boat.” Republicans, being patriotic, feel responsibility to protect the reputation of the US government, and, therefore, acquiesce in Democrat abuses of power. The Republican Majority Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, for example, helped the Democrats steal the presidential election by denying that such a thing had happened. For Mitch McConnell Republicans, America cannot afford the embarrassment of acknowledging a stolen presidential election. The Third World demeanor that a stolen presidential election gives the United States is unacceptable to Republicans who believe the honor of the government must be protected at all cost.
The Democrats are far more experienced at stealing elections than Republicans. Democrat control of big city political machines is prime training ground for corruption. The Biden regime has used the weaponized Department of Justice to block the efforts of states to return integrity to voter rolls and procedures. Consequently, the Democrats can just as easily steal the November Congressional election as they did the last presidential election. Republicans also face the disadvantage that their protests of stolen elections are misrepresented by Democrats and the presstitutes as racism, an epithet that scares fight out of Republicans.
When we see, as now is totally clear, that the FBI and the Department of Justice (sic) are totally corrupt, mere weapons used in a fight for political power, totally devoid of integrity and unconcerned with justice, we must acknowledge that we are a lost country in which the rule of law is a joke. The American people, thanks to the Democrats’ Identity Politics and Critical Race Theory are so disunited that it will be extremely difficult for Republicans to do anything about the criminal regime that has risen in Washington.
This could be happening for any number of reasons, including to alter the upcoming idiot elections, to strengthen or destroy Trump and his brainless crowd of followers, it could be to purposely cause civil unrest among the natives, or it could be for other reasons. One thing is for sure, it is bizarre, and lacks credibility. Even Trump’s response seems to be self-promoting and fake, but who really knows?
We have just been through over two and a half years of total tyranny, leading to complete totalitarianism. The country’s slave-class (voluntarily) accepted home prison called lockdowns, they accepted the forced loss of their jobs, they accepted the loss of most all their freedom, they accepted state staged riots, property destruction and brutal violence, all allowed by the state, they accepted a loss of most all mobility to travel, they accepted wearing deadly masks by order, and they accepted experimental poisonous bioweapon injections by the hundreds of millions.
They lived with purposely manufactured food shortages, they lived with loss of income at the hands of the hypocritical monsters in political office, they abandoned their families and friends, they lost all decent medical care, (what little there was) they lived with mass state murder that is democide, they reported their neighbors and shunned all who did not comply with state-mandate idiocy, and they crawled under rocks pretending that nothing was amiss.
They watched as trillions of fake dollars were printed, (theft of property) stolen and fed to the banking and corporate masters, they watched as a staged war in Ukraine became the fodder for stupidity world-wide, they watched as prices doubled, tripled, and in some cases went up a hundred fold almost overnight. They watched as police beatings increased dramatically, allowed mass shootings staged by government and ignored by police, and they watched as the state threatened and are now implementing the poisoning and killing of children by lethal injection with fake ‘vaccines.’
This is not all that happened by any stretch of the imagination, but it is enough to understand that all this is the fault of the masses of sheep who continue to worship at the alter of government, media, and total political insanity. If ever mental illness were evident, it is now obvious that 99% of this population are consumed by this illness caused by ignorance, indifference, cowardice, and dependency, and even with all this, they continue to believe most everything they are told.
As of this morning, after everything I have mentioned above, and much more, stupidity and blind gullibility continues to consume this population of scared and naïve simpletons. After all that has happened, nearly 100% of what is being presented by most all the mainstream and alternative media today, is the so-called raid of Trump’s mansion. Forgotten is the reality that all liberty has been destroyed, the economy is nearly ruined, slavery of the masses is rampant, threats to turn loose the armed IRS on every citizen not protected by government is being implemented, and more fake ‘viruses’ are being planned. But all that is important today is the Trump ‘raid,’ which by all laws of logic, is probably a set-up, a scam, or false flag, being used for any number of reasons. Even if this was a legitimate story, it is irrelevant concerning the big picture. All are consumed by this nonsense, and by design.
Every president in my opinion, should be imprisoned for crimes against humanity before or after leaving office, and I would applaud any action of that nature, but this is just another dividing plot. And of course, it has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by what is referred to as the ‘right.’ But it has also been accepted as legitimate by nearly all the alternative media as well, including most all those claiming to be ‘libertarian.’ Whoever designed this coup, knew exactly what they were doing, and nearly the entirety of the ‘conservative’ and feigned ‘libertarian’ crowd have taken the bait.
This could be happening for any number of reasons, including to alter the upcoming idiot elections, to strengthen or destroy Trump and his brainless crowd of followers, it could be to purposely cause civil unrest among the natives, or it could be for other reasons. One thing is for sure, it is bizarre, and lacks credibility. Even Trump’s response seems to be self-promoting and fake, but who really knows?
My approach to life and especially ‘news’ is to believe nothing, trust nothing, and question everything. This weird set of events lately solidly confirms my position, and in the best interest of intelligence and sanity, I will take this ‘news’ event with a grain of salt, and not spend any of my energy buying into or considering another state narrative filled with holes. Of course, I never do. I consider this only as fraud and deceit, and most likely a scam that could have been initiated by either side or both.
Think before you jump, as in most every case, the cliff of nefarious lies is much higher than expected, and gullibility leads only to madness.
Following air strikes on Haqqani’s home (killing a family), a local school (killing over thirty children), and a convoy carrying many tribal elders, his network become an inveterate threat to our soldiers until the day we withdrew.
As journalist Anand Gopal documented, “The story of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who turned from America’s potential ally into its greatest foe, is the paradigmatic case of how the war on terror created the very enemies it sought to eradicate.”
There was a satisfying victory—not just for our soldiers and veterans, but for all Americans.
One week ago it was announced that the U.S. government had assassinated Ayman al-Zawahiri, who along with Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the key planner behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The butcher of New York City was killed by a CIA drone strike while on his apartment’s balcony in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Biden administration maintains there were no civilian deaths.
There are three important lessons.
Before turning towards international terrorism, Dr. Zawahiri was an Egyptian surgeon who was tortured by U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak following the assassination of Anwar Sadat by the group “Egyptian Jihad” in 1981.
Zawahiri wanted revenge, and alongside Osama bin Laden, decided the only way to overthrow Middle Eastern dictators like Mubarak was by striking the United States, which provided money, weapons, and international protection to these regimes.
Zawahiri appears to have arrived in Kabul following the completion of the Taliban’s takeover. He was a guest of the Haqqani Network, a Taliban-allied group who were some of the bitterest and hardest fighting foes of the U.S. military during the occupation.
But it didn’t start out that way.
After the initial American invasion in October 2001, Mawlawi Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani Network, was satisfied to stay at home and uninvolved in the war between Uncle Sam and the Taliban.
That was until Pacha Khan Zadran, an adversarial warlord, convinced the U.S. government to take his side in a local dispute against Haqqani.
Following air strikes on Haqqani’s home (killing a family), a local school (killing over thirty children), and a convoy carrying many tribal elders, his network become an inveterate threat to our soldiers until the day we withdrew.
As journalist Anand Gopal documented, “The story of Jalaluddin Haqqani, who turned from America’s potential ally into its greatest foe, is the paradigmatic case of how the war on terror created the very enemies it sought to eradicate.”
And now they felt comfortable giving shelter to the leader of Al Qaeda while their current leader Sirajuddin Haqqani sits as the Minister of the Interior for the Taliban government (which swears it had no knowledge of al-Zawahiri’s presence).
These origin events, for both Zawahiri and Haqqani, were not inevitable. They were the result of poor policy made in Washington DC.
The idea that America needs to subsidize and cuddle up to every tinpot dictator in the third world, turning whole nations hostile.
The idea that America must automatically take a side in every border dispute and 8th generation family feud on planet Earth.
None of this puts America first.
We must accept that most of the world’s problems don’t concern us, and often we don’t understand enough about the situation to make a wise decision.
It’s time to stop being the world’s police.
The second lesson is that this mission was accomplished with zero boots on the ground in Afghanistan.
For two decades we were told by the War Party that unless we had thousands of soldiers active in Afghanistan, if we weren’t holding down forts and occupying territory, and if we weren’t propping up the sham government in Kabul, our counterterrorism strategy would suffer irrevocably.
We just proved that we didn’t need two decades of nation-building to get the job done. Which makes the sacrifices—of men and money—unfortunately all the more worthless.
The third and final lesson is that there’s no reason to continue this megalomaniacal and counterproductive Global War on Terror.
The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, which was intended to give the executive branch carte blanche authority to go after those responsible for 9/11, has been used and abused for twenty years to justify all manner of unconstitutional actions like the undeclared war against ISIS or the invasion of Syria.
Now the last person responsible for the attack on our country has been obliterated.
We have every reason in the world to declare victory and bring our troops home.
I call on Congress to rescind the 2001 AUMF, and reclaim the constitutional authority they illegally handed away.
But I know they won’t—not without being forced.
That’s why it’s critical we work to pass Defend the Guard bills in state legislatures. This legislation would prohibit the use of the National Guard in undeclared wars, and severely diminish DC’s power to fight endless wars with no end goals.
The death of Ayman al-Zawahiri was a victory for America.
It’ll be a victory for America First if we learn the right lessons from it.
Dan McKnight is a 13-year veteran of the military, including service in the United States Marine Corps, United States Army, and the Idaho Army National Guard. He is founder and chairman of Bring Our Troops Home. Follow him on Twitter @DanMcKnight30 and @TroopsHomeUS
Panarchism means the extension of freedom into all spheres as long as the same freedoms are fully respected in others. Panarchists expect to achieve through this extension of liberty (which includes the freedom to choose a society of prohibitions and restrictions) at least the same kind of advantages that can be derived from freedom of action in other spheres of life. In other realms of choice, such as religious faith, life partners, friends, and careers, diversity is already accepted as the norm, and each proceeds on his own path, not imposing his choices on others. Here, mutual tolerance is taken for granted.
As consistent anarchists and libertarians, panarchists want to realize freedom of action in the more important spheres of politics, economics, and social arrangements. Without the freedom to disassociate oneself individually and to associate in exterritorially autonomous volunteer communities, there is not sufficient freedom in our political, economic, and social arrangements. In its insistence on voluntary consent and freedom of action in all spheres of life, panarchism is simply a consistent and highly evolved form of liberalism, democracy, libertarianism, and anarchism.
Panarchism is based upon the difference between collectivist, territorial, monopolistic, and imposed laws – and exterritorial, diverse, individually and freely chosen laws.
Millions of people are quickly realizing that they cannot trust the institutions they rely on daily.
Inflation threatens your savings, drives up costs, and puts the dollar’s powerful status at risk.
Crime is skyrocketing, with local authorities unable or unwilling to respond—while the FBI focuses its efforts on angry parents who want a say in their children’s education.
If you question the public health officials or demand basic human rights, you’re considered a domestic terrorist. You could be cut off from your bank account and banned from communicating online. They might even turn off your power and water.
If we want to continue to live in a functioning modern society then it is time to take matters into our own hands.
Every level of government, big tech, big pharma, the corporate media, and the faceless nameless “experts” cannot be trusted to provide the goods and services that keep society running.
In fact, they have become the biggest threats to your freedom and security.
But even if we depend on what these legacy institutions provide, we don’t have to be dependent on the institutions themselves.
It’s time to take back control, by rebuilding the foundations of the economy and society at the local (and backyard) level, from the ground up.
This is what it means to build a parallel economy.
Below is a list of 12 ideas to get you thinking about the types of businesses that will help build this parallel economy.
It is far from exhaustive. As you read, it may spark other ideas of services and products you could offer, to give people alternatives, and make money in the process.
1. Teach Classes that Offer Independence
Help people build skills and become more independent by offering training in your area of expertise.
There are many people who don’t want to rely on banks, grocery stores, or the power grid.
Training in anything from growing the maximum calories on the smallest land, building solar and rainwater systems, or using DeFi (Decentralized Finance) tools to maintain custody over your own funds should be in high demand.
You want to market to your customers by showing them the benefit they will receive.
For example, don’t say How to Use Cold Storage Crypto Wallets, offer How to Securely Save Money Without Banks.
It’s not: How to Grow the Most Calorie Intensive Crops. It’s: Never Worry About Empty Grocery Stores Again.
2. Job Training and College Alternatives
Lots of people are thinking about how to work for themselves, or at least NOT work for a large corporation which doesn’t even respect their basic bodily autonomy.
Can you teach people how to start a certain business, or a skill that could allow them to freelance?
Think about any expertise you have which could help others boost their job or income prospects.
If you are training people to become part of the parallel economy, even better.
But even just providing people with skills to work from home increases individual independence, and therefore increases population-wide resilience, thus strengthening the parallel economy.
In fact, after you establish any parallel economy business, you might earn side income by training people to create something similar.
Or you may run training courses to recruit new talent, and offer the best students a chance to work for you.
This figures into the type of parallel economy business I am working on…
Most universities are just overpriced propaganda factories where Marxist professors indoctrinate young impressionable adults into believing harmful, destructive ideologies.
They no longer provide training that will help students succeed in the modern economy, and it’s becoming harder to meet lifelong friends and valuable connections amid the woke censorship.
My college alternative will allow young people to come together to live in a campus atmosphere to work on a self-determined project, paired with successful mentors who can guide them in their specific fields.
This self-directed learning coupled with expert guidance will be much less expensive, while providing more exposure to skills which matter today.
You’ll be hearing much more on this topic from me soon.
MCViewPoint 