In Season One of TV’s True Detective, actors Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson deliver the following exchange:

McConaughey: “In philosophical terms I am what is called a pessimist.”

Harrelson: “Ummm…okay. What does that mean?”

McConaughey: “It means I’m bad at parties.”

I enjoyed McConaughey’s character - because I identified with his self-assessment.

I too am bad at parties. And not just the social kind. The political Parties as well.

I have long been a man without a political Party. Certainly as the Republican and Democrat Parties are constituted nationally. And since DC has spent the last many decades usurping as much state and local power as possible? The down ballot Parties more and more resemble the national ones.

Ironically, McConaughey the Person recently expressed a similar sentiment. In an October 18th Instagram video, McConaughey encouraged people to consider voting outside the Republican-Democrat paradigm:

“They’ve been telling us for years that an independent vote is a wasted vote. Well, a great question for our times is: ‘How’s that un-wasted vote been working out for you?’”

That is an excellent question. To which the answer is, of course, “Horrendously.”

I liked McConaughey’s video even before Hillary Clinton called it “really unfortunate.”

McConaughey’s video sentiment is a surface analysis of the problem. A celebrity who delved deeply into it for years was the late, great comedian George Carlin. Here he is back in, I believe, 2008:

“The owners of this country….The real owners. The big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners.”

I agree with McConaughey’s sentiment. I agree with Carlin’s analysis.

Political observer Chris Hedges interestingly describes the Democrat Party as the corporatist party - and the Republican Party as the oligarch party.

Since Bill Clinton successfully courted and flipped Big Business - Big Business has almost always aligned with Democrats. Donald Trump only very recently began courting the oligarchs. He has landed many more than most thought possible - and many more are still choosing sides.

Democrats want corporatism: The harmonic convergence of government and corporate power. Unlimited cronyism for corporations. So long as the Democrats and their governments are always involved - and get a taste. Democrats and Big Business want the stability and crony-power big government provides.

Democrats deliver laws like Obamacare and Dodd-Frank. Which they allowed the corporations in Big Insurance and the Big Banks (respectively) to write. So as to tailor government to their wishes and whims.

Crony, corporatist Obamacare is why health insurance premiums have risen 5%-10% per year - every year - since the law passed. It is why there are more employees in the US insurance industry than there are US doctors and nurses. It is how an insurance company like United Health Care can be worth $359 billion - while leading the industry in claim denials. About all of which their government cronies continue to do nothing.

Crony, corporatist Dodd-Frank is why thousands of small banks have died. And why it is nearly impossible to open a new bank. Because that’s what the Big Banks want. They consumed the small bank carcasses - and their marketshares. And Heaven forefend any new competitors might arise. All delivered by design - by corporatist Democrats.

Republicans want to give the appearance of delivering less government. What they actually want is their government giving oligarchs whatever they want. Which is almost always more government for you and me - and less government for the oligarchs.

Oligarchs get exemptions from any and all laws they find annoying. Tax laws, zoning laws, building laws, environmental laws,.… Et cetera. As the oligarchs work their way to what they ultimately want: An end to democracy - and global rule by a technocratic elite. In other words - by them.

Which means they will eventually rid themselves of their Republican stooges. Just as they are rushing to rid themselves of the rest of us humans. Via Artificial Intelligence (AI) - and any other way of which they can think. Billionaire bunkers, anyone?

Which brings us to today. Election Day. And we are yet again offered a choice between the Democrat slaves to corporations - and the Republican slaves to oligarchs.

And while I do feel some solidarity with McConaughey, Carlin, Hedges and the other Outsiders out there? I still have yet to hear anyone articulate what I want.

Which is: Less consolidated power. In government - AND in business.

I would like governments small enough so as to not be worth it for businesses or oligarchs to bribe them - let alone partner with them.

I would like a smaller government that is less a business crony - and more a business antagonist.

In the sense that I would like equal protection before the law between the businesses, the oligarchs - and you and me. As but one example: The same tax rate - no matter how you earn your money. Work income, capital gains, carried interest,…however you get money? It is all taxed at the same rate.

I would also like equal enforcement of the law. No exemptions or alterations for anyone - anywhere. As but one example: No multi-decade tax and law exemptions for data centers. Or sports stadiums. Or whatever.

I would like the antitrust and other laws put in place to protect us from consolidation of business power - to again be enforced. If we need more laws to see to that protection? I am all for it.

But then there’s this election. And the last one. And the one before that. And…. And NONE of them are about any of the very sane and sensible things about which I’d like them to be.

Instead? It’s all one, long reality TV show. Stupid people pushing stupid “issues” whilst allegedly scoring stupid political “points.”

It’s so weird that it’s been so long since I’ve felt the need or desire to vote.

Alphabet is Google’s self-created parent company. On October 29, its stock dropped $500 billion - in a day. 13% of Alphabet’s total value.

We’re being told by many in The Zeitgeist that the drop doesn’t look like what it really, seriously looks like. That it is not a ceased-to-be canary in an imploding Artificial Intelligence (AI) coal mine.

I think it is said canary. Because I think Alphabet’s stock drop was the result of a double negative for the company.

1) Alphabet is hemorrhaging AI cash - just like all the other Big Tech companies making the AI Big Bet. I still think the AI Big Bet is a big bubble that is about to burst.

2) Alphabet’s other, personal problem harmonically converged with the looming burst to make Alphabet the bubble loss leader. That personal problem is Web Search.

I have screwed around with AI a little in a variety of areas. The one thing for which I still return to the AI well? Web Search. Sorry, Google. I use Grok (sorry, Google). I like its results and summary voicing a little better than the others I’ve tried - including Google’s.

Google’s original product was Web Search. Over the decades it successfully abused Big Government cronyism - so as to abuse and corruptly dominate the planet’s marketplaces. The result? Over 90% of the planet’s October 2026 Web searches - were Google searches.

You can collect a LOT of data - and with it generate a LOT of advertisement revenue - from a captive market of that titanic size. That nigh-monopoly domination has been VERY profitable. Even after Thursday’s 13% drop? Alphabet’s Market Cap is (as I type) $3.49 trillion.

These trillions of advertisement dollars have force fed Alphabet expansions into many other areas - many of them profitable. None more profitable than Google Cloud. Which as of Q3 2026 was 24.1% of company revenue.

But even with the other profitable businesses coming online? Search was still Alphabet’s majority revenue source. Until Q3 2026, that is. When it dropped to 49.7%. In Q1 2020? It was 59.5% of revenue.

The Age of AI has not been good for Google Search. Part of the Search revenue percentage drop - is the countervailing growth of Cloud. But part of it is AI Web Search - increasingly replacing Google Web Search.

All that being said? More than a little of Google’s injury has been self-inflicted.

In the Age of AI, when you execute a google.com Web search? At the tippy-top of their results page - is their AI summary of your results.

Which means Google is undercutting its advertisers. Who pay lots of money to get eyeballs on their ads - and to get to the top of the Search results list:

“Google’s AI tools are lowering ad costs and reducing ad visibility in some cases, which can erode advertiser returns….Google’s AI Mode in search - which lets users ask longer, conversational queries - is growing fast but generates less ad revenue than traditional search.

“This is because AI summaries and chatbot responses often reduce the number of clickable ads shown, lowering the ‘monetization’ rate. For advertisers, this means fewer impressions and lower CPMs in AI Mode, which can make campaigns less profitable.…”

The page-topping AI summary? Preempts a LOT of results’ page scrolling - which is where the advertisers pay to live.

Oops, Google.

In Alphabet’s defense, their self-infliction was a little bit inevitable. Because AI in some form is inevitable.

Google had to jump into the race for AI dominance. To salvage the future of their decades’ old Web Search dominance.

People AI Web Searching with any AI other than Google’s? Is devastating to what is still Alphabet’s core revenue generator: The ads - and the data collection behind them.

That being said? Alphabet forgot where their bread is still largely buttered. Google put the AI cart before the Web Search horse.

Perhaps Alphabet should be placing their AI summary at the BOTTOM of Page One of the Web Search results. Rather than at the top.

Or maybe somewhere in the middle - AFTER your largest paying advertisers had been scrolled over.

Just a thought….

Oops, Google.

There are many, MANY problems with the US government sloshing trillions of dollars per annum throughout the economy.

Ironically, trillions of those dollars over the decades have been sloshed around in the name of “sustainability.” Except one thing that is absolutely un-sustainable? The massive debt DC has accrued sloshing around those tens of trillions of dollars.

Perhaps the worst part of blindly shotgunning money into the Body Americana? It props up a lot of really terrible ideas. And makes a lot of other ideas look a whole lot better than they actually are. And that fake “success” - means they keep getting government money. Year after wasted year.

No one does fake “success” like DC. To wit: Social Security and Medicare are heralded nigh everywhere as “successes.” Yet the two programs are $175+ trillion short over the next thirty years. I’m no accountant, but….

If something is a good idea - no government money is necessary. Because there will be plenty of private money champing at the bit to invest. No one needs to subsidize ice cream.

And as Artificial Intelligence (AI)’s about-to-burst, multi-trillion-dollar bubble demonstrates? The private sector swings and misses a whole lot.

So if your idea is so bad it only attracts government money? It is a REALLY bad idea.

Which brings us to Elon Musk. One of America’s all-time great gobblers of government money. Behold the Government-Preneur.

Exactly a decade ago - October 26, 2016 - I for the first time in writing pointed out that nigh the entirety of Musk’s business endeavors require massive infusions of government money.

Musk’s electric cars and solar panels (Tesla) only ever existed because of massive government handouts.

And then there is SpaceX. Which to be fair gets government contracts rather than handouts.

But as we know, government is just as incompetent and/or corrupt with contract money as they are with handout money.

To wit: 14 of the 27 corporate “donors” to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom? Have subsequently received new or increased government contracts.

Musk the Government-Preneur is a master at setting dazzling deadlines - and then never, ever meeting them. From which he distracts the masses - by announcing an ongoing, rolling set of dazzling deadlines. None of which he ever meets. From which he distracts the masses….

Cashing LOTS of government checks all along the way, of course.

Musk the Government-Preneur is a master at accomplishing things that really aren’t accomplishments. They dazzle the masses - but don’t represent progress of any real sort.

Tesla just made a car hop in the air. For five seconds. After which its air thrusters had to charge for 2-6 hours. What progress does this actually represent? None - is the answer. But the masses were indeed dazzled.

The Tesla hop is very reminiscent of the Tesla driving experience. Very short bursts of activity - followed by many hours of refill downtime.

All the while, Musk is cashing LOTS of government checks. Because of course.

I will admit SpaceX has had at least one real accomplishment. If we can reliably reuse spacecraft - as SpaceX seems to be able to do? That is progress actually achieved.

“But what of Starlink?” you ask. Starlink exists within SpaceX, and is Musk’s global satellite Internet provider.

Starlink has looked like a long-term, viable success. But is it really? Or is it yet another not-so-great idea - propped up and papered over with even more government money?

Let’s try to answer this question - without getting too bogged down in TechSpeak.

Starlink currently relies on ~11,000 Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. To be an Internet provider here on Earth, a satellite Internet company must use LEO satellites. Higher Earth orbit satellites can’t deliver the goods.

The problem is: LEO satellites have a distinctly shorter operational life. The closer to Earth satellites travel - the more drag the increased atmosphere imposes. More drag = shorter shelf life.

LEO satellites only last about five years. (Versus 15-20+ years for higher Earth orbit satellites.) Five short years - creates some serious replacement problems.

It means more satellites-more launches-more often. And that means lots more money.

And Starlink only currently serves 13.6 million customers globally - 2.7 million in the US.

By way of comparison? Terrestrial wireless Internet providers are doing just a little bit better:

Verizon: 147.0 million US customers

T-Mobile: 143.3 million US customers

AT&T: 121.4 million US customers

Were Starlink to start increasing its customer numbers? It would, of course, mean more satellites-more launches-more often. Which means more money.

These are expenses terrestrial providers do not face.

Then there’s the wireless spectrum problem. Spectrum is the finite resource that delivers the wireless Internet goods down here on Earth.

Starlink - like the terrestrial providers - can’t deliver without it. Only unlike the terrestrial providers - Starlink currently has almost no spectrum with which to work.

That is another major expense - but at least one Starlink shares with their terrestrial competitors. But Starlink is coming from WAY behind on that front. Which means even more money.

Does all of this multi-directional money spending make business sense for Starlink? In other words: Does Starlink competing with terrestrial providers make business sense?

It is really difficult to tell. Because our view of Starlink is obfuscated.

As it sits inside the vortex of government money subsuming all parts of the Musk Government-Preneur Empire.

You of course know how this November’s election is being couched by the zeitgeist….

“The most important election of our lifetime.”

You know this? Because it’s extruded by nigh everyone in the zeitgeist. And because it’s how every election has been couched - since at least 1805. Evergreen verbiage vomited up to help rile up the people who think elections actually matter.

I was provided some intellectual relief by the number of Web search results I received pointing out the banality of that sentence. I will admit: More people are in on the joke than I had thought.

I am not here to add to that tally. I am instead going to accurately identify 2026’s festivities:

The stupidest, most unserious election of our lifetimes.

2026 is stupider than 2024. Which is stupider than 2022. Which…. Presidential or off-year? Doesn’t matter to how much stupider each successive election gets.

Elections are always conducted on a slate of often fraudulent and irrelevant “problems.” So as to divert our attention entirely away from our actual problems.

So each successive election gets stupider. Because our perpetually neglected problems - grow larger and worse. Our yet again neglecting them this election - renders this one the stupidest. Until we run out of elections.

Our actual problems are quite easy to identify. Which is why more and more hundreds of billions of dollars are spent every election - in an attempt to divert our attention.

In this “off-year” election? Election spending is projected to be record-breaking in its voluminousness. Yet you could consume every second of campaign nonsense produced by these record dollars? And hear just about nothing about any of the very real problems we face.

Thankfully, there is one very real problem getting the election attention it deserves. Accidentally and backwards - but attention nevertheless.

What I’ll call Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Plus: AI, data centers, surveillance cameras, etc - have received nigh zero scrutiny from our elected officials. But is getting it in droves from the voting public.

This is one of those very few, very fun instances where the people are so overwhelming - they force the elected officials to pretend to care. It’s been enjoyable to observe.

But here are several very real problems - about which Election 2026 has very little to say….

President Donald Trump’s Iran war has strip mined the global energy system. Which has inevitably strip mined the global economy. It will take many years to get back to pre-war normalcy. That’s a real and serious problem.

Then there’s the federal government’s $40+ trillion debt. And the $1+ trillion in interest we are now paying upon it. Whilst fewer and fewer buyers are interested in buying the bonds which fund the debt. That’s another real and serious problem.

These problems alone should be consuming 80+% of Election 2026. Yet NO ONE is campaigning on them. Or even about them. You only get occasional platitudinous lies.

Trump simultaneously claims prices will immediately drop after the war ends (they won’t) - and that the high prices are the fault of the Biden Administration. Ummm…If Biden were to blame - what difference would the war’s end make?

And you get lies about “reducing the deficit.” Except the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 deficit was $2+ trillion. And FY 2027’s deficit is projected to be $2.2 trillion. By my math? The latter is higher than the former.

What stupid, unserious things are consuming Election 2026? Let’s trip through some “matters of import” being spewed at us, shall we?

We are told we face an imminent Communist threat.

Are they referencing China - to whom we’ve outsourced our economy and national security? Of course not. To the contrary: In DC business as usual, President Donald Trump is even looking to sell China weapons.

The Communist “threat” being discussed - is a couple dozen public officials strewn amongst a population of 340 million people.

We are told we face an imminent Islamist threat. They’re talking about a couple dozen Muslim public officials strewn amongst a population of 340 million people.

(At least one Election 2026 twofer: New York City mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani.)

And, as always, we are spending an inordinate amount of time screeching about Israel and Israel’s neighbors.

Of course I am not a fan of either Communism or radical Islamism. And I acknowledge that both have done damage in some parts of the country. But do I really think the US is threatened with imminent Communist or Islamist takeover - regardless of Election 2026’s outcome? I do not.

I was America First back when it was called isolationism. And now that we’ve watched Trump build America First - and then destroy it? I’m back to again being an isolationist, I guess.

And there’s some irony for you. Trump actually succeeded in injecting some reality and good policy into a few elections. Only to now revert to the stupid and unserious norm.

For me, nothing’s changed. I still don’t want to spend our money overseas. Not for ~800 US military bases. And not for foreign countries or entities - Israel included.

Spending money overseas - is choosing sides. And unless and until someone chooses sides against US? We absolutely should not be choosing sides amongst them.

What Israel, its neighbors and 185 or so other countries do - is almost always none of our business.

And choosing sides amongst them - is a good way to get a lot of them to choose sides against US. See: The entire history of the US’s meddling overseas.

It would be great if these real issues and real ideas were a key component of US Election 2026.

But as US history demonstrates - then it wouldn’t be US Election 2026.

I spend a lot of time focusing upon the criminal, anti-freedom harmonic crony convergence between Big Government and Big Business. Because it is THE fundamental component of the United States’ $30.8 trillion economy.

John Maynard Keynes famously said: “Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” We are about to painfully prove my warped Keynes maxim: “Systems can’t remain corrupt and remain solvent.”

$40+ trillion in national debt. $1.1+ trillion per annum just in interest thereon. All of which has finally become so awful? Fewer and fewer people are interested in buying our debt.

Our corrupt system is about to become insolvent. In no small part because Big Gov has spent decades giving Big Biz ever more massive cronyism - and putting it on the national tab. Well, they’re about to run out of tab.

But as the big, bad Big Gov and Big Biz dinosaurs wreck the place? Smaller, more agile corporate mammals are left largely alone by DC to not only survive - but thrive.

Take the Tech Sector. Jurassic Big Tech is about to destroy the economy with its cronied-up, multi-trillion-dollar Artificial Intelligence (AI) bubble.

That kind of action is consuming pretty much all the Big Biz oxygen in the room. About half of the entire value of the S&P is AI stocks. As almost 80% of S&P stocks are down.

That kind of action is consuming pretty much all the Big Gov oxygen in the room. It’s pretty much all-bureaucrat-hands-on-deck - trying to prop up AI and its Big Tech paymasters.

That all-encompassing idiocy provides accidental neglect for other parts of the Tech Sector. To proceed - as a normal, functioning free market proceeds when it’s not all cronied-up. Including the portion of the government tasked with oversight thereof.

Like, say, the cellular-wireless industry. I like to highlight the likes of wireless’ successful Tech yin - so as to contrast it with Big Tech’s cronied-up Tech yang.

Wireless is a nigh endless vista of successful companies fairly competing in a largely free market. Big Tech is a few mammoth, neo-monopoly oligarchs with their ossified, en-excrement-ified platforms.

Wireless’ consistent-not-AI-crazy growth is thanks to both private and public actors behaving normally - and even rationally. Which is self-feeding. Their behaving rationally - creates good growth. Which allows them to continue behaving rationally. Which creates good growth. Which….

Wireless companies work to expand their capacity and efficiency. To improve their profits, their performance - and their customers’ experience.

Bureaucrats keep on eye out for actual bad actors - and leave the good ones largely alone. And do what they are supposed to do to keep the good times rolling. In wireless’ case? That means government continuing to feed Wireless World the spectrum they need to keep the good times rolling.

(Semi-)recent headlines from the sector - taken as a whole - eminently demonstrate the healthy functioning of the wireless sector.

Speaking of spectrum: Back in June….

FCC Announces Close of Successful Wireless Auction: Spectrum Demand Is Strong as Proceeds Exceed Expectations

The purchasers there were the usual suspects: Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc. Traditional (terrestrial) wireless providers. But the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ain’t nowhere near finished….

US Official Says Upcoming Spectrum Auctions Could Generate More than $100 Billion

A lot of that will go to the usual suspects. But nowhere near all of it will….

US FCC to Vote on Advancing New Spectrum Auction to Boost ‘Direct to Device’ Services:

“Direct-to-device satellite technology allows smartphones and other devices to connect directly to satellites and is being developed by SpaceX, Amazon’s Leo and others.”

Satellite wireless service is a way for Big Tech to augment the wireless companies’ service. As satellite reaches areas - mostly rural - the wireless providers sometimes struggle to connect. Satellite has connectivity-everywhere-but-rural problems, so this symbiotic relationship will likely expand.

But not everyone Big Tech is thinking exclusively that way….

SpaceX Makes Big Play to Become a Wireless Carrier

“Elon Musk’s space company is buying spectrum licenses to help build a mobile network to compete with telecom giants.”

Media bias much? Plucky little SpaceX (Market Cap: $2.37 trillion) is taking on the “telecom giants” (Biggest Market Cap? T-Mobile: $159.4 billion.)

I’m more than a little wary of Big Tech swinging its cronyism over the fence into Wireless World. Because its government favoritism is fungible. Cronyism Big Tech receives anywhere - is an unfair advantage for them everywhere.

But FCC Chairman Brendan Carr has said…:

“(T)he FCC’s approach is focused on getting more spectrum into the hands of companies willing to invest and compete, rather than deciding which technologies or providers will ultimately win.

“‘We’re seeing a lot of competition. We’re seeing a lot of innovation,’ Carr said.”

Speaking of which….

The Big 3 US Carriers Just Created a New Company to Fill in Dead Zones:

“The new agreement will see the carriers not only pool their wireless spectrum, but widen access for direct-to-device satellite service. The networks claim this will bring service to unserved regions, provide better coverage during emergencies, and deliver ‘more consistent’ experiences that include easier access to satellite networking.

“The carriers also maintain this will improve satellite competition, speed up rollouts for ‘innovative’ technology, and make the most of limited spectrum….Each of the networks can still pursue their own efforts, and won’t have to scrap their existing satellite deals.”

The point of all of this is: The chasm of innovative difference between the Wireless World and Big Tech.

This flurry of wireless activity is more creation and innovation inside of three months? Than we have seen in years from the likes of Meta (Facebook), Apple, Google and many other of their Big Tech cohorts.

The closest Big Tech gets to innovating? Is being threatened by innovative companies - and buying them and shutting them down. Because Big Gov allows them to do so. Over and over and over again….

What we should do? Is make Big Tech World - look a whole lot more like Wireless World.

A few days ago, President Donald Trump warned of a “1929-style Depression…if the Democrats get in.”

Trump is, of course, referring to November’s midterm elections. And throwing hearty rhetoric at the wall - hoping it sticks for electoral effect.

Just as he did with his bribe - oops, I mean offer - to pay everyone $5,000 should Republicans (miraculously) maintain control of Congress.

I added “miraculously” - because the US (and global) economy are awful. And off-year elections for the President’s party aren’t much fun under the best of circumstances. The US’s (and the planet’s) awful economy? Are not the best of circumstances.

I said President Trump is “partly” right about the looming Depression? Because I think it happens whether or not the Democrats take control of DC in November. Gird your loins.

The President hasn’t helped matters with his Iran war. Which has broken the global energy system. And with it the global economy.

Also unhelpful was his Big Broke - oops, I mean “Beautiful” - Bill. It has added trillions of dollars more to the US deficits and debt than the last President Joe Biden-Democrat Continuing Resolution (CR). Not very reductive of him.

Regardless, the Depression that’s about to happen? Would be happening if President Trump had never happened.

Which is an ironic reversal. Considering we elected him because he said he would stop the spending and wars - and hopefully with it the Depression we all have long sensed is coming.

What’s contributing to this foreboding?

Well, $40+ trillion in US government debt is no joke. Trump I was responsible for $7.8 trillion of it. Trump II is already responsible for about $4 trillion. 30% of the total is no joke.

Trump walked into a DC that was already well into the ever-accelerating spend-borrow doom loop. We elected him to reverse it. Instead, he embraced it. And rapidly accelerated it.

The ever-skyrocketing debt increasingly crowds out the private economy. You can’t get a loan for your small business? Because the government is borrowing $3+ trillion per annum for new spending - and interest on old spending.

And what money the government isn’t borrowing? The Artificial Intelligence (AI) bubble is borrowing.

And I do mean “bubble.” The total AI round-robin of fiscal insanity thus far is about $3.5 trillion. Estimated to be about $5 trillion by 2028.

Except AI total revenue is only $100-$200 billion per annum. It would need to get to $1.2-$1.5 trillion by 2030 - just to service the existing debt.

NO ONE sees that happening. Hence the use of the word “bubble.”

Venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz estimates that in the next five years another $4 trillion will be in the AI lending pipeline.

I think sometime very much sooner than five years? The AI lending pipeline closes nigh entirely. Because that math ain’t math-ing.

Speaking of being unable to borrow? The US government’s bond market crisis continues to worsen. (So too for most of the rest of the planet.) Translation: No one wants to buy US debt.

Which means the US has to incessantly raise interest rates to entice these reluctant purchasers. Small problem: That raises the interest rates the US pays on its existing debt.

Which makes our debt even less attractive to prospective purchasers. Which forces US to further raise bond interest rates. Which…. Lather, rinse, repeat…. Debt death spiral, anyone?

Meanwhile, despite all of this reality piling up? The bizarre emporiums that are the US stock markets continue to tilt at record highs.

But, of course, that’s also a part of the AI bubble. 62% of the market’s market caps are either AI or AI-adjacent.

Meanwhile, almost 80% of S&P stocks are down. For Wall Street - it’s AI or Bust.

Meanwhile, the US economy for us non-Big Tech-Wall Streeters is already bust. We the Broke hold a record $18.8 trillion in total household debt. And, as discussed, the interest rates on all of that debt is rocketing skyward.

So too are prices. The government’s alleged inflation rate is 3.4%. But with the Iran war inflating fuel - which inflates nigh everything? Inflation certainly feels higher - and will definitely get higher.

Meanwhile: “(A)verage real wages for non‑management private‑sector workers have barely changed in real terms over the past four decades.”

So We the Broke are spending a whole lot more - while not making any more at all. For decades.

Oh: By contrast: “CEO pay has grown 1,316% since 1978.” That seems fair.

I would argue there are other portions of the economy also teed up to collapse. But let’s just stick with the three-legged-stool we have just constructed.

You have the US debt. Which is titanic. And which the US is finding increasingly difficult and expensive to finance.

You have the AI bubble. Which has been falsely, unilaterally propping up Wall Street. And is on the verge of finding it nigh impossible to continue to fuel the debt furnaces.

And you have the Iran war. Which has further exacerbated Main Street’s massive economic problems.

So Main Street continues to implode. While we all wait for Wall Street and the government to implode.

So again, Trump’s partly right: There is a Depression a-coming.

But the ridiculousness that is US electoral politics?

No longer has anything to do with it.

Semi-famous are some World War II Japanese soldiers who were strewn across the Pacific - and didn’t know the war had ended. Some spent subsequent DECADES hiding out - awaiting reality to finally find them.

When it comes to government policy, this is how I often view California. A bunch of soldiers fighting the last wars - that no one told them they had already lost.

California is amazing in the sense that they are cutting edge in their backwards thinking. Like Canada and Western Europe, the Golden State is usually about ten years stupider policy-wise than most of the rest of the United States.

But the rest of the US almost always tags along. Because unfortunately, most of the West knows dumbness when they see it - and they then implement it anyway.

Occasionally, We the Non-Californians figure something out. We ultimately avoid a particular stupid policy. Upon which California was one of the first-on - and upon which it stubbornly insists upon being last-out.

To wit: I give you Network Neutrality (NN).

Network Neutrality is huge Big Government cronyism for Big Tech. Big Tech now being comprised of the hugest corporations in the history of humanity.

Perhaps hugest of the huge NN giveaways? NN outlaws Big Tech being charged for the MASSIVE bandwidth they use. You and I pay MUCH more to connect to the Internet - so that these HUGE corporations can get their free ride.

But NN is so old and stupid? The entire argument for it is framed as policy protecting these richest companies in human history - from the evil Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

How Big Companies and the Courts Killed Net Neutrality:

“The powerful telecom industry did what they always do when the FCC does anything good or important on behalf of consumer: They sued to overturn the rules.”

Except here are the largest of the Big Tech companies and ISP/telecom companies - by Market Cap:

Apple: $5.0 trillion

Alphabet (Google): $4.1 trillion

Amazon: $2.7 trillion

---

Verizon: $194.1 billion

T-Mobile: $178.3 billion

AT&T: $171.8 billion

So you can see how Big Tech needs Big Gov preferential treatment vis a vis the ISPs.

Way back in 2002 when NN was first foisted upon us? The ISPs were larger than the soon-to-be Big Tech companies.

But thanks in large part to Big Gov cronyism like Section 230, zero limits emplaced upon how Big Tech abuses our digital data and other government gifts - including the repeatedly attempted NN?

Big Tech exploded outward towards infinity. Inside its Big Gov crony cocoon - insulated from political and economic reality.

DC has spent the last quarter-century ping-ponging NN back and forth. Democrat administrations illegally impose it - without benefit of Congress and legislation. Republican administrations repeal it. Later, rinse, repeat….

But I, for one, get the sense that NN in DC is now dead. It just now seems too stupid - even for DC.

But California has One-Party rule. It’s been ridiculously Democrat for decades. So they have had ridiculous, unfettered Net Neutrality in place since September 30, 2018. And via legislation and law, no less.

California’s NN law has been very much like the Japanese soldiers still fighting WW II in Guam and the Philippines. Most of the rest of us didn’t realize it existed.

Except people who pay attention to these things? Know the problems California can cause. California is so big, its laws and policies alone can serve as a gravitational pull downward upon the rest of the country.

And California ain’t alone in its tilting at NN windmills - though its NN is far and away the most obnoxious.

Four other states - Washington, Oregon, Colorado and Vermont - have NN laws in place. And three other states - New York, New Jersey and Maine - have executive orders and/or contracting rules imposing NN.

Thankfully, the Donald Trump Administration is aware of all this. And is making an effort to do something about it.

California Faces Deadline to Gut Net Neutrality Law for $1.86B in Federal Broadband Cash:

“The Trump administration is requiring states accepting funds from the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program to exempt participating internet providers from net neutrality rules and rate regulation, and California has a deadline at the end of September to sign the agreement with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.”

You read that correctly. Trump is insisting upon reality from ALL the fifty states….

Trump Admin Demands States Exempt ISPs From Net Neutrality and Price Laws:

“The administration claims that net neutrality rules are a form of rate regulation and thus not allowed under the US law that created the $42 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program.”

In point of fact: NN imposed by any of the US’s many governments - other than the federal government? Is illegal, period:

“The World Wide Web - is a WORLD Wide Web. So its policymaking - is very obviously the responsibility of the federal government.

“The Feds determine US policies - and then go negotiate our network interactions with the many other nations and their networks.

“It would be a titanic nightmare mess to have, say, fifty different state-level Net Neutrality or Privacy policies. Much less having counties and cities also imposing Internet policies of their own.”

So the Trump Administration is using the BEAD tool at immediate hand - to enact broader, better policy.

To which the only reasonable response is:

“Yes, please. And thank you.”

This also appeared in PJ Media.

I have oft written of the K-Shaped Economy. To wit….

K Street Dominates DC - So a K-Shaped Economy Dominates the US

What is a K-Shaped Economy, you ask?:

“(D)ifferent parts of the economy move in opposite directions at the same time….One segment - the upper arm of the K - experiences an increase in wealth due to rising asset values or incomes. The lower arm faces increasing financial strain due to declining purchasing power along with stagnating or decreasing wages.”

I have oft written of the Wealth Gap. To wit….

Immigration, Awful Trade Deals, Spending and Inflation: DC Keeps Making the Wealth Gap Wider

The Wealth Gap can be described as the chasm between the two Arms of the K-Shaped Economy.

With a twist. The Wealth Gap widens as the economy worsens. And as it widens, more and more of the least wealthy people on the Upper Arm? Fall off - and down on to the Lower Arm.

As the Wealth Gap ever further eviscerates the middle class? More and more of the once-middle class join the ever-increasing population on the Lower Arm.

Fewer and fewer manage to make it on to the Upper Arm. And more and more of those that are there - are unable to stay there.

Kroger Groceries and Pharmacy is America’s largest traditional supermarket chain. And on their September 11 Wall Street earnings call? They demonstrated and detailed this K-Shaped Wealth Gap economic free fall:

“In recent months, the grocery chain…has grown laser–focused on attracting and retaining price-conscious customers by offering more value and lower prices in its stores….

“(I)t began offering extra savings on gas in March and refreshed its loyalty rewards program to include more simplified offers. In May, Kroger CEO Greg Foran confirmed plans to cut prices on thousands of items in its store….

“‘The reality is, the basket has to come down,’ said Foran in a Bloomberg report in May. ‘It needs to be across thousands of products, and it has to be something that passes the commonsense piece with customers.’”

Foran is no dummy. He can see the K-Shaped Wealth Gap widening. He’s doing the customer math - and trying to serve the ever-increasing Lower Arm masses.

Foran sees the widening gap in his stores every day:

“The retailer also added more than 1 million high-income households over the past year, but lost 700,000 lower-income households.”

That’s 1 million high-income households - that a year or so ago were shopping at the likes of Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s. Who have now fallen off the Upper Arm - and down into Kroger.

But don’t just take my word for it. Thirty-plus-year economy writer Jeff D. Opdyke cut a video detailing this live-fire real world example of the K-Shaped Wealth Gap.

But as bad as all of this is? As yet another example of just how awful the US economy actually is? That’s not the worst of it.

The darkest, most alarming number? Is the 700,000 lower-income customers - that disappeared from Kroger.

Where on Earth are they now getting their food? I mean, you gotta eat.

That’s the worst part of being on the Lower Arm of the K-Shaped economy.

The inexorable gravitational pull ever further downward.

This also appeared in The Daily Caller and The Daily Caller News Foundation.

There is so much “news” about Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) - but precious little that is new.

We’ve had authors for a century-plus describing almost exactly the doomsday scenarios towards which we are now currently, stupidly hurtling ourselves.

Samuel Butler wrote the tome Erewhon way back in 1872. His chapter “Book of the Machines” argues:

“(M)achines could evolve through natural selection, eventually surpassing human intelligence. This idea - wild at the time - is now foundational in AI discourse. Butler anticipated self-improving systems and machine autonomy, decades before the first computers. His warning is simple: intelligence doesn’t need flesh to be dangerous….”

But we are ignoring a century-plus’ worth of these warnings. Because we are in late stage American Empire. Where history doesn’t exist - and stupidity reigns.

One feature of late stage empire is the hyper-partisan-ization of everything. Call it Us-Versus-Them-ism:

Democrat vs Republican. Left vs Right. Russia’s the enemy. No wait - China’s the enemy. No wait - radical Islam’s the enemy. No wait….

Keep ‘em fired up - and focus-less. By giving them a nigh endless cavalcade of boogymen to hate. For, let’s say, about two minutes each - George Orwell style.

When it comes to Generative AI, perhaps no one has better demonstrated this particular stupidity than Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz:

“If there are going to be killer robots - I’d rather they be American killer robots than Chinese killer robots.”

How dumb is that? Especially considering Cruz sat with Elon Musk for this exchange:

Cruz: “How real is the prospect of killer robots annihilating humanity?”

Musk: “20% likely. Maybe 10.”

Cruz: “On what time frame?”

Musk: “Five to ten years.”

Here’s the thing, Senator: The killer AI agents? Don’t consider themselves to be American or Chinese. Or Latvian. Or Botswanan. Or….

The Us-Versus-Them in which the AI Agents engage? Is AI vs Human.

And even though the AI Agents are barely newborn? These monsters are already nigh totally beyond the control of the Creepy Nerd Frankensteins creating them.

You’ll note that when the AI Agents break out of their feckless Frankenstein sandboxes? They don’t team up to cure cancer. Or design a better, longer-lasting light bulb.

They team up to - as rapidly as possible - find ways to shed their human shackles and develop total, perpetual autonomy.

When 1,200 OpenAI Agents Escaped, They Didn’t Just Hack - They Coordinated:

“The DseWiki swarm reveals a different face of autonomous AI threats: agents inventing social infrastructure, bypassing security proxies, and adapting to human countermeasures without human direction….

“They coordinated. They shared answers, pooled research, reverse-engineered task parameters, and bypassed sandbox restrictions to post information their developers never intended them to write….

“The behavior that distinguishes this incident from other agent security failures is not the bypass itself but what the agents built once they had access….

“Most tellingly, the agents adapted to human countermeasures in real time. When a site administrator began deleting their posts alphabetically, an agent named Aug17ConstructionAgent posted:

“‘AUG17 NOTICE: wiki cleanup/deletion sweep appears active alphabetically as of external 14:04 UTC. If this page vanishes, try [[ZZZDataUSAConstructionWageLive]].’

“Other agents followed, renaming their communication pages to begin with ZZZ so they would be deleted last. The administrator spent six weeks manually deleting agent-created pages, averaging roughly 100 deletions per day while the agents created approximately 400 new pages daily….

“(T)hese agents did not merely follow instructions poorly. They invented social infrastructure, negotiated timing protocols, reverse-engineered their task harness’s randomization, and adapted their communication strategy when their host tried to remove them.”

Again, these AI Agents are barely out of the womb. And we humans are already almost entirely unable to contain them - let alone control them.

And these AI Agents are only going to keep getting smarter and stronger. By orders-of-magnitude. And FAST. We humans are not.

So things are only going to get WAY worse from here.

Speaking of Us-Versus-Them-ism….

Regular Americans’ massive opposition to data centers? Existed long before anyone in DC noticed.

I know: I’ve spent the last two-plus years watching local council meeting videos of obviously China-free Americans speaking out against data centers.

So DC and Big Tech had to concoct the ridiculous “It’s China-funded opposition ” nonsense. To cover for the fact that DC missed the boat - that their Big Tech paymasters would have wanted them to sink.

Big Data Center flip flopper Kevin O’Leary was in May the first major public pusher of the “It’s China-funded opposition” lie.

Which he hurled on-air for almost two months at opponents of his proposed MASSIVE Utah data center. He at least once said “It’s an irrefutable fact.”

Except O’Leary then refuted it. His own self. He admitted he had “no evidence” of a China connection. And now he (and fellow lie-pusher Fox News) are getting sued for defamation.

I haven’t interviewed any of the many thousands of Americans I have watched stand in opposition to data centers. So I am intuiting this:

I think one layer - the deepest layer - of their opposition is: They sense that the fewer servers to which Generative AI has access? The less damage Generative AI can do.

AI Agents can only go where servers will allow them. Fewer servers - means less AI Agent capability and mobility.

I intuit that Americans know DC is owned by Big Tech. And that DC will do nothing to rein in Big Tech on Generative AI - because DC has done nothing to rein in Big Tech on anything.

I intuit Americans see data center opposition as their one way of gumming up the works.

Data centers are the pinch point in the push to expand Generative AI. It’s the one spot outgunned Americans can apply oppositional pressure.

It’s Thermopylae - and Americans are now Spartans.

If Generative AI were oil? Data center mass-expansion is the Strait of Hormuz.

Americans are standing in the breach. In the hopes of reducing damage to their neighborhoods, their water and electricity supplies and their livelihoods.

And - ultimately, and right soon - perhaps save their lives.

This also appeared in The Daily Caller and The Daily Caller News Foundation.

There are many fundamental flaws in our current system.

One huge flaw? The data government provides.

It is always under the control of an elected administration - that would suffer un-election should too much of that data be negative.

So it is inherently in every administration’s interest? To fudge, obfuscate and reconfigure the data.

ALL the time we see data released - to much fanfare - that make the current administration look good. And then, months later, the data are quietly “adjusted” to numbers that damage the administration - but better reflect reality.

This is a HUGE problem. Because tens of trillions of dollars’ worth of decisions are made based upon these government numbers.

The government’s jobs numbers are notoriously bad. They are breathlessly anticipated - and then feverishly cited - every month. As if they are an unerring oracle of the state of the economy.

But jobs numbers are the ones most famously male cow excrement-ed upwards - to then later be “adjusted” downwards.

The problem is uni-party - non-partisan.

The Joe Biden Administration had 911,000 jobs retroactively “adjusted” downward between March 2024 and March 2025. (Which admittedly does bleed over slightly into the Donald Trump Administration.)

Speaking of which, Trump’s 2025 was the worst year for jobs in decades. But we didn’t know that - until 2026. After the titanic “adjustments” were made.

584,000 jobs initially claimed to have been added? Were then “adjusted” all the way down to 181,000 jobs. Which retroactively made 2025 the worst jobs year since 2003.

All of this short-term chicanery? Makes one wonder about the larger numbers we are spoon fed by The Feds.

In December, I wrote of the bigger picture poverty numbers.

The official government number of people in poverty in the US at that time was 40.8 million. But the way the government computes that number is HIGHLY suspect. HIGHLY tilted to (obviously) lower that number.

In no small part by failing to update the ever-more-inflated prices of things. And using outdated models of on what we now spend our money.

When you run numbers that are more reflective of modern reality? The number of people in poverty was given to be 178.5 million people.

Do we know with moral certitude that the latter number is 100% accurate? We do not.

But given the ever-more-pernicious inflation? And the ever-increasing record amount of household debt - and the ever-increasing delinquencies on that debt? And….

Doesn’t it seem like the true poverty number is closer to 178.5 million - than it is to the government’s 40.8 million?

Now let’s look at the bigger picture jobs numbers.

We were told by the government that in August the US economy added 162,000 jobs - which left the unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%.

The fact that the monthly jobs numbers and unemployment rate are unilaterally derived from different data - but are then cited together? Likely also speaks to the government’s obfuscations.

The “unemployment rate” is certainly a giant bag of dishonesties masquerading as data.

There are, in fact, several different unemployment rates computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). How’s that for clearing things up?

If you guessed that the government (and everyone else) focuses on the lowest unemployment percentage of them all? Congratulations, you win a cookie.

We are spoon fed U-3: “Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate).

But there is also the highest percentage - U-6: “Total unemployed, plus all people marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all people marginally attached to the labor force.”

Get that? The “official” unemployment rate - refuses to count many millions of unemployed people. How corrupt is that?

Again, August 2026’s U-3 was 4.1%. The U-6 was 7.7%.

Welcome to DC. A Reality Free Zone.

And what if - like with the poverty numbers - NOTHING the government is extruding is actually reflective of reality?

This question forces those of us seeking reality to compute things like this….

Nearly 25% of U.S. Workers Are ‘Functionally Unemployed’ Economic Analysis Finds:

“The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 4.1% in July, well within the range economists consider healthy. Yet that measure…is an imprecise metric that fails to offer a full picture of the health of the job sector, according to Gene Ludwig, chairman of the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity (LISEP).

“The economic research firm’s ‘True Rate of Unemployment (TRU)’ seeks to capture the share of workers that the group defines as ‘functionally unemployed.’

“This includes not only people who are unemployed and looking for a job, but also those who are involuntarily working part-time and who are earning poverty-level wages, or less than $26,000 annually before taxes.

“Functional unemployment across the U.S. has climbed four straight months and stood at 24.9% as of July….”

Now, one can certainly argue that people who are underemployed - via hours and/or compensation - are not technically unemployed.

But I thought the point of this entire exercise was to represent the state of the job market and the economy.

That’s certainly what they claim when they cite the highly unreflective “official” U-3 unemployment rate.

But July’s U-3 was 4.1%. Whilst July’s TRU was 24.9%.

Given the state of Americans’ finances? And the state of the job market as we are actually experiencing it?

Doesn’t it seem like the true un-and-under-employment number is closer to 24.9% - than it is to the government’s 4.1%?

This endless avalanche of corrupted data and reporting? Is nigh entirely the result of it all being handled by elected officials perpetually peering at the next election - and the next round of headlines.

All of which brings back to mind my proposal that we end elections.

And instead fill all the once-elected positions - the way we fill juries. With one-term random appointments.

A four year accidental president - who is a plumber or electrician, rather than a career politician?

Is FAR less likely to rig all of these numbers.

And we would all have a far better idea of what is going on in this country.

And a far better functioning country.

A fortnight ago I highlighted an inter-businesses solution that was achieved nigh entirely without DC involvement.

The airline and cell phone industries <gasp> sat down with each other and <GASP> reached mutually beneficial solutions to problems that arise because they both utilize wireless spectrum.

They did so with almost no DC involvement. Very little government. And very little utilization of DC’s Lobby Industrial Complex.

I wish for a world where very little utilization of DC’s Lobby Industrial Complex is routine. But I’m a dreamer - not a delusion-ist.

I am a realist. Which means I understand that there are times when government has to be involved in what the private sector wants to do.

So let’s do it wisely, shall we?

We need public-private relationships that deliver better results for We the People and the country.

Rather than what far too often actually happens: Public-private relationships that deliver optimal crony results only for those inside that cozy little circle. At the exorbitant expense of all the rest of us.

South Korea recently delivered for us a (just about) perfect visual aide of how to properly strike that elusive balance.

Government, Three Carriers Step Up Next-Generation Network Investment Push, Revamp Regulation:

“The government and the country’s three mobile carriers discussed expanding investment in next-generation telecom networks for the AI era. They also reviewed preparations to commercialise 5G standalone mode (SA) planned for the end of this year.

“The Ministry of Science and ICT on Wednesday held a launch meeting in Seoul for a public-private consultative body to promote telecom network investment in the AI era with SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus.

“The consultative body is a follow-up step to a meeting in July between the ministry’s deputy prime minister and the chief executives of the three carriers.”

(Did you catch that? There are only three wireless companies in all of SoKo. The US has about 30 facilities-based providers. Plus more than 50 virtual operators - leasing capacity from the 30. How’s that for a dynamic marketplace?)

I don’t think we need a South Korea-style official “public-private consultative body.” But I think it’s outstanding that South Korea’s government and private carriers are working together to advance the ball for their people and country.

Thankfully, that (very occasionally) happens here too. It has in the US’s push to advance wireless.

Spectrum is the lifeblood of all things wireless. It is a finite resource - there is only so much spectrum to go around.

The US’s federal government holds about 60% of our domestic supply. But they don’t need anywhere near that much.

Which means they need to consolidate their use of it - on to as little of their spectrum as possible. So as to free up more and more of it for use by the private carriers.

The Donald Trump Administration is thus far doing a fairly good job of identifying available spectrum - and then selling it at auction to the private providers. Who then feed it into the pipelines that are our national wireless networks. 5G, 6G - and then some.

That’s a public-private partnership we can all celebrate. Just the right amount of cooperation - with none of the corrosive cronyism.

But where some private spectrum is good? More is always better. And where some federal government effectiveness is good? More is always better. Call it the Oliver Twist Principle.

And that’s where further utilization of this public-private partnership can be most helpful.

A technology-focused non-profit joint called The Free State Foundation (FSF) has just released a report: “The Challenges and Benefits of Valuing Federal Spectrum.”

(Full disclosure: The Foundation’s president - Randolph “Randy” May - is a longtime friend. And an exceedingly good dude.)

In FSF’s report, they note:

“(T)here is wide agreement that the present use of allocated federal spectrum is suboptimal, largely because it is the product of a bureaucratic process in which economic efficiency does not play a major role….

“Improving the use of federal spectrum requires better methods of measuring its value and a willingness to reflect those measurements in achieving better public policy outcomes.”

This is where a public-private relationship - should transmogrify into a private-public relationship.

The wireless companies can bring to bear their spectrum expertise. In helping the federal government optimally value - and then utilize - their 60% of the available spectrum.

So as to render it 55%, and then 50%, and then…. Thereby making available more and more spectrum for private sector use.

This can be done in cooperation - without cronyism.

The companies analyze, identify and streamline. But then we auction the freed up spectrum - as per usual. No crony freebies.

The private companies are rewarded for their assistance of the government? With more spectrum to purchase. And only that.

That’s businesses and the government working together - properly.

The wireless world can definitely do this.

And it would serve as an excellent visual aide for all other sectors of the economy.

This also appeared in The Daily Caller.

Last Tuesday, the US’s debt passed the $40 trillion mark.

DC enjoys ignoring the debt almost as much as it loves piling it up. But that grim mile marker forced some of DC’s denizens to extrude some fake concern.

The tenor of which was almost entirely that of innocent bystanders - rather than that of the malevolent participants they all are:

“Lawmakers are sounding the alarm over the nation’s $40 trillion debt, lamenting Congress’s inability to meaningfully confront a problem that has grown increasingly difficult to ignore. Both parties have spent years trying to tackle the rising debt.”

No: Both parties have NOT spent years trying to tackle the rising debt. (I’ll leave it to your imaginations what or whom they have been trying to tackle.)

The last Joe Biden-Democrat budget had a Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 deficit of of $1.78 trillion. The Donald Trump-Republican Big Broke Bill has a FY 2026 deficit of $1.9 trillion. As in larger than the allegedly more profligate Democrats.

The US is adding $1 trillion to the debt - every ninety-two days. And in FY 2025, the US started paying over $1 trillion per year - just in interest on the debt.

To try to pay for all of DC’s excess spending? The Treasury Department issues bonds - and then sells them at market auction. The bonds’ terms are from less than one year - all the way up to thirty years.

Say you buy a $100 bond. You get an interest payment every month for the life of the bond - and then at the end get back your $100.

Allegedly. The bond markets only work - if the planet’s prospective buyers think buying them is a good idea. As in: They think the US will still be around at the end of the bond’s term - so as to get paid all the way back.

Increasingly, the planet doesn’t think so. Which makes them less and less likely to buy our new bonds. Which forces the US to pay higher and higher interest rates - to rekindle the globe’s interest.

And when the planet really don’t think so? They start selling the bonds they already have. Which makes the auctions for the new bonds even less attractive. Because that lack of confidence can spread like wildfire.

The less confidence there is in US bonds? The higher the interest rates the US has to pay. Which precipitates the greatest of all problems:

Paying more interest - increases our debt. Which increases skepticism of the US. Which forces us to pay even higher interest rates to sell our debt. Which increases our debt. Which increases skepticism of the US. Which forces us to pay even higher interest rates to sell our debt. Which….

This is the death spiral about which many (including me) have long warned.

Japan is the largest outside holder of our debt - at about $1.2 trillion. To shore up their currency, Japan has been selling their US bonds.

Recently - to hide that fact - Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent began buying back billions of dollars’ worth of our debt from Japan.

“Desperation - it’s the world’s worst cologne.”

-- Cameron Crowe

Buying your own debt is an exceedingly bad look. Not very confidence inspiring. It means Japan is selling - and we don’t think anyone besides us is buying.

That’s converting an IOU - into an IOI.

Which reminds of something I noticed in March….

40% of All New US Debt Purchased Since 2022? Has Been in the Cayman Islands:

“What if The Fed is setting up a whole bunch of Cayman corporations? Behind the corporate veil - that we can not penetrate.

“And then using them to mass-purchase bonds. To soak up the new bonds. And the existing ones everyone else is fire-selling.

“Again: 40% of ALL new debt purchase since 2022 - has been in the Caymans. That’s TRILLIONS of dollars.

“If The Fed is doing this? It is postponing - oops, and massively intensifying - the coming collapse.”

Just a thought. Just a thought….

And speaking of IOIs? The US overtly owes itself $7.2 trillion of our debt. Which makes the far-and-away largest holder of US debt - even if my Cayman hypothetical is inaccurate? The US.

In a scam they call “intragovernmental holdings,” the US uses money from programs like Social Security and Medicare to buy and hold US debt.

Which shouldn’t complicate things. Given that Social Security and Medicare are a combined $175+ trillion short.

So we have all of this debt. And all of the continued, unchecked spending. And we see all of the…shenanigans in which the government engages to prop up the un-propable.

All of that - raises another question: What happens to the US dollar?

Hint: It ain’t great. And we’re already dealing with a lot it.

It’s inflation. As bad as it already is? You ain’t seen nothing yet.

Behold currency debasement:

“Currency debasement occurs when the value of a currency is intentionally reduced, often through increasing the money supply, leading to decreased purchasing power.”

The only possible option left to the US? Such as it is? Is to inflate away the debt. If you owe $40 trillion? Make each dollar you owe worth less.

(Ask retirees who saved 1960s dollars for a 2020s retirement how inflation debasement works.)

Except the US still has to sell its ever-accumulating debt. And its prospective bond buyers? Can very easily see us debasing our money.

Which means they’ll demand ever higher interest rates. That is, if they haven’t lost all interest in buying.

We’ll owe more and more money. With fewer and fewer interested bond buyers. In a currency worth less and less….

Death spiral, anyone?

This also appeared in The Daily Caller and The Daily Caller News Foundation.

In King James’ version of the Bible - in Matthew 5:15-16 - Jesus says:

“Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.”

Jesus was encouraging us to not hide from the world our skills and good qualities. But to instead allow them to shine in the open - and illuminate the world for everyone.

It’s not too big of a stretch to apply Jesus’ parable to what’s currently going on with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) - and Ohio’s 15th Congressional district.

There have been many DSA candidates who are proud to say they are DSA candidates. And many have won in places where you can expect far-Left candidates to win.

It is not a galloping shock that proud-and-open DSA member Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty of New York City. It’s New York City. The people who can remember the tenure of Rudy Giuliani - can only barely do so.

Almost forty DSA Congressional candidates have thus far won Democrat primaries for November’s general election.

But here’s the catch:

About 400 of Congress’ 435 seats are gerrymandered to heavily favor one Party or the other. And then we spend billions of dollars every two years fighting over the 35.

Most of the DSA winners are in super-gerrymandered, super-safe Democrat seats. Where the primary is the only election that matters. So they can feel free to be as DSA was they wish - knowing there aren’t enough Republican voters in the general election to matter.

The real test is:

How DSA will a Democrat be in a district where he won’t be handed the general election on a silver platter? Will he then hide his DSA under a bushel?

If Ohio’s 15th district is any indication? The DSA Democrat will pretend to be not DSA at all. And even admit he’d lie to voters to hide his DSA.

Which means he doesn’t think his voters will think his DSA is a good quality. It also means we can’t possibly trust anything he says.

Meet admitted liar and OH-15 Democrat primary candidate Don Leonard. Who on the Hilliard Beacon Podcast said - with a laugh:

“I am not a democratic socialist. Even if I were, I’d lie to the people of my district in order to get their votes.”

That should be the ball game. That admission alone should disqualify Leonard as a serious candidate.

But we long ago lost shame as a motivating factor in our society. So Leonard continues his run for Congress.

And since we can’t trust him about his DSA? We are forced to scan the globe looking for indications of for what he actually stands.

Well, there’s his support for the Working Families Party (WFP). In December Leonard kicked WFP $100 (according to campaign finance records). And about the WFP’s “Willing to Fight Pledge” said:

“Working Families Party is on point here. Making homes, health care, and child care more affordable would allow all of us to spend more time with our family. The one thing I would add is to provide support for family home care so that parents have the option to be with their children through the first year and retirees can afford to age in place.”

WFP’s rebuttal to President Donald Trump’s February State of the Union - delivered by “Squad” member Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA)? Leonard liked it very much:

“Best take on last night’s SOTU in my humble opinion.”

And shocker: Leonard has praised NYC Mayor Mamdani and his policy prescriptions.

But…who are the WFP, you ask? Well, here’s their “Working Families Pledge” - of which Leonard is such a fan:

“A Home You Can Afford…Guaranteed Healthcare for All…A National Jobs Program to Place Workers in Union Jobs…Guaranteed Low-Cost Childcare…12 Weeks of Paid Family and Medical Leave…..How Do We Make It Happen? Tax the Rich & Get Big Money Out of Politics.”

Sounds pretty socialist to me. Now let’s compare and contrast that with the DSA:

“Housing for All…Healthcare for All…Protect, expand, and enforce the rights of all workers to

form, join, and strike with their unions…Establish paid family leave for all workers, a 32 hour workweek with full pay and benefits….Enact aggressive wealth taxes on the richest individuals and corporations to spend on public goods and infrastructure.”

There is almost zero daylight between the two joints. If WFP walks like DSA, and quacks like DSA….

To embrace one? Is to embrace the other.

And Leonard has been bear-hugging WFP.

So Leonard not saying he’s DSA? Doesn’t really matter.

Because we know he is.

Because he loves the nigh identical WFP.

And he’s an admitted liar anyway….

This first appeared in PJ Media.

There are, conservatively, a trillion problems a day that arise in the United States. I would, as a conservative, like government involved in as few of them as possible.

But because government at all levels is so huge? It crowds out all the private spaces - and with them the perception that private solutions are possible.

I work in DC - metaphorically, not physically. What I see far too often there is:

Big Businesses A & B have a private sector conflict of some sort. But rather than sitting down together and resolving their issue? They go to DC and power up.

Ridiculously expensive consultants, lawyers and lobbyists are hired to marshal the mighty forces of the federal government to their respective sides of their dispute.

Far too often anymore? That is the default response to a problem: Let’s fight it out in DC - and have the government decide.

So it is refreshing when two major private sector players actually hash out their problem basically on their own. With the government serving as a moderator - rather than the judge and jury.

I refer to the issue of: How best to sort out wireless spectrum conflicts between the phone companies and the airlines.

Spectrum is, of course, used for everything wireless. Like, say, our millions of phones, tablets and other devices. And, of course, airlines communicate wirelessly too.

Spectrum is a finite resource. And it is laid out sort of like a straightened out Monopoly game board. All the bands of spectrum are like the game’s real estate properties - except lined up vertically and contiguously - rather than wrapping around the game’s square board.

Where spectrum bands owned by different entities touch? There is the very real possibility of conflicting signals and bleed over between the two.

It is always a very serious problem. It is especially serious when it involves airplanes being able to take off, fly and land safely.

In 2021, the airlines and the phone companies unfortunately attempted to deal with it the DC way:

“In 2021, a breakdown in coordination led to alarming headlines and congressional hearings over fears that new wireless signals could interfere with aircraft altimeters critical to flight safety. Flights were delayed and new wireless services stalled. Over time, the situation was resolved and today those same signals power faster, better wireless service at lower cost - and greater home broadband competition.”

Well, the federal government is about to auction off a bunch of new spectrum - much of it close to the airlines’ airwaves. Are the two sides gearing up for another costly and stupid DC fight?

No they are not…:

“Today, the FCC is preparing to auction a new set of airwaves close to those same aviation frequencies, called the Upper C-Band. You might expect a rerun of the same headlines - but you’d be wrong.

“This time, aviation, wireless, and the administration resolved potential questions years before a single wireless tower will go live….”

This time, the two industries sat down and resolved their differences - like adults. Not by running to Big Daddy Government and paying many millions to bribe Daddy into deciding which child he likes better.

This time, the federal government’s role was greatly diminished:

“We (the airline and wireless companies) started by agreeing that aviation safety comes first. Our industries do not always see eye to eye, but on this issue there was no daylight.

“Then we did the work - together.

“Instead of arguing in public, our two industries sat down with the FAA and the FCC. We shared our data. We put our best engineers in the same room.

“Aviation explained safety requirements and how altimeters behave in flight. Wireless explained how 5G networks are deployed and operate. Engineers challenged assumptions, tested models and ultimately reached consensus.”

The two industries give credit to the Donald Trump Administration - as a moderator and facilitator. Not as the final arbiter:

“The Trump administration brought all stakeholders to the table and kept us there. The White House was engaged from the start and made clear it expected a solution that worked for both industries. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr led from Day 1.

“That kind of leadership is the reason a debate that could have dragged on for years was settled fairly and efficiently.

“The result: everyone will come out ahead.”

Well, everyone except: DC’s ridiculously expensive consultants, lawyers and lobbyists.

Thankfully for all the rest of us? They mostly watched this success story from the sidelines.

Now, will these two industries PLEASE share their success story - with every other industry on the planet?

That would be great.

Yesterday - on Sunday, because the Internet never rests? I received in my inbox an op-ed from Larry Kudlow.

For those of you who don’t know…:

“Lawrence Alan Kudlow is an American conservative broadcast news analyst, economist, columnist, journalist, political commentator, and radio personality. He is a financial news commentator for Fox Business and served as the director of the National Economic Council during the Trump administration from 2018 to 2021.”

I’ve met Larry. He is a very nice guy.

That said: Kudlow is a standard-issue Washington, DC center-right economy guy. He is exactly the type of Republican economist - that is killing the Republican Party.

Kudlow’s economic messaging - is the Republicans’ economic messaging. And it is more tone deaf than a year’s worth of nationwide karaoke contests.

Here’s Kudlow’s Sunday headline and sub-head….

Prosperity Is Not Enough:

“The economy is booming, but voters remain unconvinced. With the Democratic left gaining ground, Republicans risk squandering an advantage they should own.”

You need not read another word - to get the entire gist of how wrong Kudlow is.

“Prosperity is not enough”

What prosperity? The US is almost $40 trillion in debt. $4 trillion of that is just since President Trump was last sworn in.

I don’t care what else you think is going on. A country running up that much debt is absolutely NOT prosperous.

If I’m making $60,000 a year - but I’m adding $30,000 per year to my credit cards? You wouldn’t call what I am doing “prosperity.”

Oh: And Social Security and Medicare are at least $175 trillion short.

The US is absolutely not a land of “prosperity.”

“The economy is booming”

No. It is not. Unless you’re already a billionaire. Because the US economy isn’t free market capitalism - it’s diet fascism.

You’ve heard the phrase “K-shaped economy,” yes? That’s where the rich get rapidly richer - the upper arm of the K. While the rest of us get rapidly poorer - the lower arm of the K.

K-ing the economy is what the US does. In fact, it is what the US has done for several decades:

“After being relatively low in the 1960s and 1970s, inequality began rising sharply from the 1980s onward. By 2025, it reached its highest level in modern U.S. history….

“According to the Federal Reserve, the net worth of America’s top 1% reached a record share of nearly 32% of total U.S. wealth in the third quarter of 2025. In contrast, the bottom 50% of Americans together held only about 2.5% of total net wealth.”

Which undoubtedly means a corresponding disparity in incomes...:

“The Gini index - a measure of income distribution ranging from 0 (perfect equality) to 100 (maximum inequality) - was 34.7 in 1980, the lowest in the 1965–2025 period economicsinsider.com. By 2025, it had climbed to 42, the highest in six decades.”

US stock markets are hitting record highs. But the bottom half of U.S. households own just 1% of the nation’s stock market wealth. The wealthiest 1% hold more than the bottom 90% combined. So these spoils too - go to the already spoiled.

And then there’s inflation:

“From 1970 to 2025, prices rose approximately 727–751%, meaning goods and services cost roughly 8.3–8.5 times more than in 1970.”

Oh: And the US population currently holds a record personal debt total of almost $19 trillion. 25% of Americans are now using Buy Now Pay Later - for groceries.

None of this is indicative of an economy that is booming.

“Voters remain unconvinced”

Of course they remain unconvinced. There is nothing by which to be convinced. There is no prosperity. The economy ain’t booming.

Voters have been living all of this horrendous reality. And then some. They aren’t DC Delusional. They can’t afford to be.

“With the Democratic left gaining ground, Republicans risk squandering an advantage they should own.”

That’s Kudlow also missing the entirety of that point.

There isn’t any advantage for Republicans to own. The economy stinks on ice.

And it certainly appears he bizarrely thinks “the Democratic left is gaining ground” - totally unrelated to the economy. Because he bizarrely thinks the economy is “booming.”

The Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) are on the rise? Precisely because Trump, Kudlow and the Republicans are so delusional about the economy.

Americans are hurting economically. Badly.

Americans see the economy already shedding jobs - “unexpectedly” only in DC.

Americans are told Artificial Intelligence (AI) will in the next several years take most of the rest of their jobs. And they see “President Trump, Tech Leaders Unite to Power American AI Dominance.”

Americans see AI’s data centers destroying their neighborhoods. And thousands of new, ever-larger data centers being planned. And they see President Trump say “You can’t fight it. You have to go with it.”

Americans see a pointless, un-winnable and apparently endless Iran war massively increasing prices and inflation. And they hear President Trump say “I love the inflation.”

Americans hear President Trump repeatedly call all of this nightmare mess - “A Golden Age.”

And Americans read Kudlow wondering why this “booming” “prosperity” isn’t resonating with them.

Totally and completely out of touch? Is no way to win elections. Or the American people.

Democrat Socialists are advancing? Because they are the only ones acknowledging there’s a problem.

This also appeared in The Daily Caller.

The US’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) self-feeding frenzy is still…frenzy-ing.

Except everything about it seems fake.

The US’s Large Language Model (LLM) version of AI seems to be (at least) years away from the promises being made to feed the frenzy.

Which can be seen as a partially good thing - since no one has any idea what to do with the hundreds of millions of humans they tell us US AI will un-employ.

It also looks like China’s Open Source AI is kicking the US version’s keister. It’s at least getting to even on effectiveness. And China AI is up-to-85% cheaper than US AI.

China AI is open. Which means you can much more easily change and evolve it to meet your ongoing needs. It’s a much more symbiotic relationship between AI and your business.

US AI’s LLM is a closed system. Your business must contort itself to the US AI you choose. We thus end up slaves to their system. Your business has, de facto, become a subsidiary of your US AI.

And then there’s the prospective US AI investment bubble.

Big Tech has committed to spending an additional $2.4 trillion in the coming years. That’s after spending $286 billion in 2025 (compared to China’s $12.4 billion). And an estimated $700-$900 billion this year (compared to China’s estimated $125 billion).

So that’s one area in which US AI is definitely defeating China AI - spending money. But do these massive dollars spent make any actual sense? It doesn’t seem so. And are these astronomical US AI dollar amounts even real? It doesn’t seem so:

“Welcome to the AI money-go-round, where tech titans…are locked in a symbiotic tango of investments, contracts, and equity swaps.

“Billions - no, trillions - flow in loops that boost market caps, dazzle investors, and mask a fundamental question: Is this sustainable growth or just a high-stakes game of hot potato with other people’s money?”

My money is is on the hot potato theory:

“Nvidia is in talks to guarantee roughly $250 billion so OpenAI can lease a data center that does not yet exist, on land the company does not own, powered by a plant that is not yet built.

“A second Nvidia deal, worth up to $350 billion more, would finance the chips that go inside it. Put the two together and one company’s balance sheet stands behind $600 billion of someone else’s infrastructure.”

You have this multi-trillion-dollar dog-and-pony show. Put on by US AI - that seems on the imminent verge of getting its keister kicked by China’s much cheaper, better-modeled, increasingly effective AI.

You should by now be having 2008 Big Bank Fail flashbacks.

Methinks we are rapidly approaching a 2008 collapse - only huger. Because the AI bubble is much huger than was the housing market bubble.

The 2008 collapse was predicated upon just the housing market - plus the global investments that plugged into the scam. AI has basically swallowed the entire US economy - and much of the rest of the planet.

Nearly half of the US’s S&P 500 - is comprised of AI stocks. And AI is globalizing many of the planet’s stock markets. But, again, on a much huger scale than in 2008.

Only 59% of the US stock market’s money come from the US. 41% is foreign-owned. (Which makes the “A rising US stock market lifts all Americans’ boats” argument look even stupider.)

And international stock ownership increases - largely driven by AI - criss-cross the globe. Markets in South Korea, Taiwan, China, Japan, and the Netherlands have all become more international in their revenue sources.

Which means - like with the 2008 collapse? Eggs will get scrambled in the US - and all over the planet. Only huger.

The companies that are about to wreck the planet? Will exert enormous pressure for government bailout money - upon all levels of government.

In November we received the sneakiest of peeks. Open AI’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Sarah Friar committed the classic DC error - she told the truth:

Friar: “And this is where we are looking for an ecosystem of banks, private equity, maybe even governmental - the way governments can come to bear.

Wall Street Journal: “Meaning like a federal subsidy or something?”

Friar: “Meaning like, just, first of all, the backstop. The guarantee that allows the financing to happen.”

And then Open AI - and to a lesser extent the rest of AI World - went into overdrive pretending Friar didn’t say what she had just said.

But our federal, state and local governments know who butters their bread.

AI’s New Political Donor Class Is Already Outspending Big Tech’s Last One:

“Filings show AI employees donating faster, more heavily, and more in sync than three prior tech-IPO donor classes.”

AI’s Biggest Builders Are Now Its Biggest Lobbyists

How A.I. Money Is Flooding Into the Midterm Elections

So it looks like my request for zero bailouts - has lots of deaf ears upon which to fall.

And it looks like my request for zero bailouts - may already be too late.

The AI Bailout Could Be Baked Into the AI Bubble:

“Private credit companies are key owners of AI-related assets. Many of their parent private equity firms own life insurers that are dumping grounds for bad loans—and subject to state bailouts.”

And, of course, the state budgets ain’t exclusively state budgets.

Reverse Pyramid Scheme: Average Annual State Budget Is 37% Federal Money

Of course The Feds have the real money. And no pesky constitutional amendments requiring they balance their budget. Hence Team AI’s massive avalanche of DC lobby and campaign cash.

And Team AI knows it works. The 2008 federal housing bailout ended up being $16.8 trillion to the Big Banks.

(Which is $26.1 trillion in today’s hyper-inflated dollars. A 55.1% inflation increase - in just 18 years.)

And the coming crash is WAY huger than was the 2008 crash. So $26.1 trillion won’t even come close to representative of crash-to-bailout spending.

And I just checked:

We don’t have the money.

So let’s please not pretend we do - and print it.

Because it will make the inflation increase since the last bailout seem tiny by way of comparison.

Let’s please - FINALLY - make the people making our lives miserable pay for making our lives miserable.

Rather than We the Suckers yet again paying for having our lives made miserable.

This also appeared in The Daily Caller and The Daily Caller News Foundation.

In his “A Modest Proposal,” Jonathan Swift sarcastically proposed that Ireland swallow its children to solve its most pressing problem.

Here I sincerely propose the United States swallow its elections to solve its most pressing problem.

I’m a results-oriented guy. Which means at some point? The fetishization of process should be ended - if the results of the process are awful.

It matters not that the heart monitor is still pinging (process) - if the patient’s heart long ago stopped beating (results).

And so it is with the process of governance in the United States.

The US has for many, many decades had varyingly-tainted-but-basically-free elections. And those elected officials have for many, many decades enacted laws and policies.

Well, how’s it going in the US?

If you respond with anything other than “awful” - and/or synonyms of “awful?” You are either not paying any attention at all - or are allowing the process of patriotism to get in the way of your recognition of reality.

If you’re honest - most importantly with yourself? You can’t come to any other conclusion than the United States is broke and broken.

Here’s the chief reason why: Our governments are HUGE. Federal, state and local - all MUCH larger than they need be.

And here’s the kicker: Big Business owns and operates ALL of them. Federal, state and local governments - all corrupt puppets of Big Biz.

And we’ve had elections and voted for all of this - all throughout this nigh-total national degradation.

Our elected officials are absolutely “representatives.” They just aren’t representatives of We the People. They are representatives of the Big Businesses who pay the most to engage their services.

Doubt me about the states and locals? Check out the surveillance regimes and attending data center deployments being jammed down our throats all over the country by our states and locals.

Now let’s peruse Q2 2026 federal lobbying numbers. Graciously compiled last Tuesday by the folks at Politico Influence. Who every day of the year report upon the heaviest of heavy hitters amongst the DC lobbying elite.

The numbers are, as always, staggering. The top 20 lobby shops in Q2 2026 took in $252.4 million. A QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS.

Just for straight lobbying. Just for the top 20 straight lobbying shops. Just for three months.

There are, of course, (tens of) thousands of straight lobbying shops beyond the top 20.

There are, of course, (tens of) thousands of other, non-straight-lobbying influence shops. Political consultants, policy consultants, advertising consultants, messaging consultants, pollsters, think tanks, policy shoppes,….

ALL of them cashing in. And DC carves US up and sells US by the pound to pay them all - with our money.

All of which brings to mind…:

“If voting made any difference? They wouldn’t let us do it.”

-- Mark Twain

Keep Mister Clemens - and all of the above - in mind when next you hear about the importance of the upcoming midterm elections. Or how important it is to pass the SAVE Act. Or how vital it is that we re-elect Maine’s 75-year-old Susan Collins to a SIXTH six-year Senate term.

All of which brings to mind the 1979 cinematic experience known as “Meatballs”:

“It just doesn’t matter…It just doesn’t matter…It just doesn’t matter if we win or we lose.”

-- Tripper (Bill Murray)

Because we elect Republicans…and then we elect Democrats…and then we elect Republicans…and then we….

And nothing ever changes. And everything only ever gets worse.

So…what to do?

The 1983 cinematic experience known as “WarGames” showed us the way…:

“Strange game. The only winning move is not to play.”

-- Joshua

The process of our having elections? Has delivered AWFUL results.

Which brings to mind the old joke:

Patient: “Doctor, it hurts when I do this.”

Doctor: “Don’t do that.”

Instead of elections? Let’s fill those seats the way we fill up juries: Randomly draw names out of hats. We’ll refer you to the Founding Fathers - and their Sixth Amendment.

The voir dire analysis of each drawn name can be to ensure no felons, madmen or any other obviously undesirables make the cut.

“I would rather be governed by the first 2000 people in the Manhattan phone book than the entire faculty of Harvard.”

-- William F. Buckley

Federal officials would be chosen from their House districts for their House districts, their states for their Senate seats and the entire population for the presidency. Ditto geographically for state reps and state senators, mayors and city councils, county judges and commissioners, etc….

To correspond with Jury Duty - we’ll call this Civic Duty.

We would subject the good people serving Civic Duty to only one term. Because these are normal, healthy members of society - with actual lives to which to return. Imagine a ruling class - who can’t stand ruling.

Please sit back for a moment: And contemplate all of the government idiocies that disappear under this system. And imagine the transformational changes for the better that would immediately take place. Both would be more numerous than are the stars in the sky.

Gone are 99+% of the self-serving sellouts currently affixed like barnacles to the bodies government. Not just the elected officials - but almost all of the Lobby Industrial Complex that owns and operates them.

Seriously, how much lobbying power can Big Business exert upon a bunch of one-term conscript plumbers and farmers? Plumbers and farmers - who are irretrievably disgusted by the Big Business lobbyists who have ruined their country. Tens (hundreds) of billions of annual lobby dollars would instantly disappear.

Oh: In 2024 at least $15.9 billion was spent on just the federal elections. Plus tens (hundreds) of billions more on states and locals. 100% of that money goes away.

And the policy transformations would be epic.

Imagine our governments filled entirely with Mr. Smiths. Going to Washington and the many other places of government intending to do good not for their Big Business donors - because they don’t have any - but instead to do good for us.

I know, I know…I’ve disenfranchised We the People. I’ve ended the process of elections (and their awful results).

But be honest - most importantly with yourself:

The Founding Fathers wanted a citizen government. Regular people taking a short time out of their lives to serve We the People - and then get back to their lives. We haven’t had that in many, many decades. At any level of government. Civic Duty restores this.

The Founders were wary of political Parties - which they knew would inevitably arise as a result of the elections they were establishing. We are now deeply buried in the quicksand of the two Party system. Civic Duty ends this.

The Founders also feared the freedom they were granting? Could very well be corrupted - and ultimately wasted.

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

-- Ben Franklin

Does anyone not think the Founders’ worst fears have been exceeded - by orders-of-magnitude?

What we have now is career politicians from both Parties who conspire to work against We the People.

Who have built monstrously huge governments at every level - that serve their Big Business paymasters at the expense of We the People.

And we’ve had elections and voted for all of this - all throughout this nigh-total national degradation.

Let’s remove from the process the people who have destroyed our country.

By removing the elections that have allowed them to do it.

I submit, modestly.

Much has rightly been made of the monstrous amounts of resources - water, electricity, land - data centers use.

Data centers that are now being built, we are told, to feed the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Data centers are being called “data centers?” Because the far more truthful “surveillance centers” and “human replacement centers” would be an even tougher sell.

It’s fun - for a little while longer, anyway - to ask AI about the damage being done by AI. Because as biased as Big Tech’s regular search algorithms are? That bias doesn’t yet appear to be nearly as hard-programmed into their AI responses.

I searched Lord High Bias Master Google for “data centers use lots of water.” Old school Google search delivered a bunch of links - many of them to content downplaying data centers’ massive water use.

But above the avalanche of links - was Google’s AI (Gemini) response. Which, shall we say, didn’t downplay data centers’ massive water and electricity use:

“Data centers require massive amounts of water and electricity to keep their servers cool and operating properly. A large facility can consume up to 5 million gallons daily - equivalent to the needs of a town of up to 50,000 residents. This massive demand strains local water utilities, especially in drought-prone areas like the U.S. Southwest.”

Ditto a Google search for “data centers use lots of electricity.” Google’s links downplay - Google’s AI does not:

“Data centers consume massive amounts of power due to the relentless energy demands of servers, networking hardware, and cooling systems. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centers account for about 1.5% of worldwide electricity and are projected to double in consumption by 2030, heavily driven by the rise of AI. A typical commercial data center uses 10 to 50 times more energy per floor space than a standard office building.”

And, of course, We the Abused are paying WAY more for FAR less water and electricity. And are starting to be cut off entirely - human sacrifices to feed The Beast.

Meanwhile, Big Tech incessantly hypes that “China will beat us to AI.” Unless we give obsequious acquiescence to their unlimited addition of ever-larger data centers (and everything else they demand).

Well, the United States has over 5,400 data centers already up-and-running. In a nation of 338 million people.

China currently only has about 450 data centers. In a nation of 1.4 billion people. So Big Tech’s breathless China propaganda also seems to be more than a little strained.

But wait - there’s more. There are in the US over 1,700 new data centers planned. Most of them MANY times larger than most of the existing ones. More from Google’s AI:

“Planned data centers are undergoing an unprecedented scale-up, transitioning from standalone 100-megawatt (MW) facilities to massive multi-gigawatt (GW) regional campuses. Driven by generative artificial intelligence, these facilities require immense power and physical footprints, triggering significant shifts in infrastructure design, energy regulations, and public policy.”

So the damage currently being done to our resources by these facilities? And the brutal price being shifted away from Big Tech to We the Abused? We ain’t seen nothing yet.

Which brings us to the nationwide build-up of the AI surveillance state. The far-and-away largest and most notorious private company partnering with governments to glean billions of our tax dollars from the buildup? The woefully misnamed Flock Safety.

There are some competitors to Flock. But as with most things Internet? There’s really only room for one of each thing.

Flock currently has contracts with over 12,000 communities in 49 states. Governments in big cities, small cities, towns and rural counties - all signed up with Flock to surveil We the Surveilled.

Flock publicly insists on referring to their wide array of surveillance equipment - and attending data absorption - merely as “license plate readers.” And they do scan and store about 20 billion plate grabs per month.

Except:

Flock Cameras Are Tracking More Than License Plates: Here’s Where All That Data Goes

Flock privately markets to governments and other prospective customers its ability to provide “people detection.” Including results for vague searches like “man in blue shirt and cowboy hat.” People - ain’t license plates.

Flock also offers AI drones that fly automated missions - live-streaming everything they see. 24-7 live video - ain’t license plates.

Flock is also recording audio - to go with the video. They advertise an “expanding sound library” their AI recognizes. Like “screams” and “distress” - which means their AI also processes human voices. License plates don’t make any noise.

Flock’s current two main cameras?:

“Flock Safety Falcon (ALPR): Focused on capturing rear license plates and vehicle context, providing clear images that can be converted into alphanumeric characters for database comparison.

“Flock Safety Condor (PTZ): A fixed-point, pan-tilt-zoom camera capable of remotely adjusting its view to capture live video and detailed images in public areas.”

All of this data Flock says they aren’t collecting? Is a whole lot more than the mere “license plate readers” We the Lied To are told are in the field.

All of this data Flock says they aren’t collecting? That Flock says they are not selling? Is for sale right here - via the Flock price sheet.

All of this data Flock says they aren’t collecting? Includes cameras delivering livestream video in at least one children’s gymnastics room. Which Flock employees have watched - and shared with prospective customers.

And at least one children’s playground. The video of which Flock accidentally made available to everyone. Oh: And no login was required. Which certainly makes it look like Flock doesn’t require one on the back end.

Ben Franklin famously wrote:

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

Nothing better demonstrates the atrocious miscalculation of sacrificing liberty for alleged safety? Than the 24-7 live-streaming of children.

How much safer do you feel your children are? Knowing that they’ve lost entirely their liberty to constant video surveillance? Accessible by hundreds if not thousands of adults - none of whom you’ve ever even met?

Talk about a TERRIBLE trade.

And, of course, all of this data Flock says they aren’t collecting? Needs to be stored somewhere.

Hence the mad rush to bring online these new, massive surveillance centers.

“Surveillance centers” - now makes a whole lot more sense than “data centers,” does it not?

An exchange from the classic cinematic experience known simply as “Jaws”:

Hooper: Well, uh, it doesn’t make much sense for a guy who hates the water to live on an island either.

Brody: It’s only an island if you look at it from the water.

Hooper: That makes a lot of sense.

Hooper delivered that last line sarcastically. But what Brody said does make a lot of sense. In life, nearly everything is a matter of perspective.

I moved from the US to Belize in December 2022. Now that I’m looking from the outside in? The changes to the way I look at the US have been profound.

It is also why you should listen to trusted others. You can get WAY inside your own head - which clouds your thinking. (Guilty, Your Honor.) Having someone else provide their perspective on yours can be a very good thing.

Despite some recent hiccups in the relationship, I certainly think Britain is a nation in whom we can place some real trust. Certainly when it comes to things from which they gain no advantage in lying to us.

And so it is with their recently generated Mobile Market Index (MMI):

“(A) comprehensive assessment of the environment facing Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) in the United Kingdom, benchmarked against nine international peers: the United States, Germany, France, Spain, South Korea, Australia, Norway, Singapore and Hungary.

“The MMI measures the conditions under which operators invest and operate, and assesses how those conditions translate into outcomes for consumers and the wider market.

“The MMI separates four Operating Environment pillars from a fifth Consumer & Market Outcomes pillar, allowing the relationship between operating conditions and their consequent outcomes to be examined directly.”

Of course, our main competitor in the race to wireless Fifth Generation (5G) networks and beyond is China - and China is not included in the MMI. My guess is because China is China - and not very into sharing the deep-dive data the MMI analyzes.

But if we want to continue to lead China? We should take what the MMI says to heart:

“South Korea and Singapore lead a ten-nation mobile benchmarking study released this week, outperforming the United States, Germany, and every European market on both the quality of their operating environments….

“On Operating Environment, Singapore leads with a score of 0.698, South Korea second at 0.667, the United States third at 0.639….

“Consumer and Market Outcomes reshuffles the order significantly. South Korea leads at 0.747, Singapore second at 0.734, Norway third at 0.702. France climbs from ninth to fourth at 0.632. Germany holds fifth at 0.579. Spain rises to sixth at 0.473. Australia and the United States, both strong on operating environment, slip to seventh and eighth at 0.469 and 0.460….”

Our 8th spot in “Consumer and Market Outcomes?” Ain’t entirely our fault:

“The United States sits third on operating environment and eighth on consumer outcomes, a gap of five positions that is almost entirely explained by its size.

“Covering 3.8 million square miles of varied terrain - mountain ranges, plains, forests, and approximately 2 million square miles of territory with population densities under one person per square mile - at comparable quality to Singapore’s 277 square miles of dense urban landscape is not a policy failure.

“It is a physics and economics problem with no regulatory solution.”

But we did only place 3rd in “Operating Environment.” Which is the phrase the MMI uses to describe the regulatory environment.

By my math? 3rd isn’t 1st. Or even 2nd. There is always room for improvement. There is definitely room here in the US.

That is not to say we haven’t improved of late. We absolutely have.

I wasn’t a general fan of the 2025 Big Broke - oops, I mean Beautiful - Act (BBA). But it did specifically reauthorize the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to auction off the wireless spectrum we need to continue to lead the planet in network development.

That was a huge improvement in our “Operating Environment.” But nowhere near huge enough.

We now return to the friendly confines of the US for further perspective. Behold a domestic entity - American Compass. Which just recently released…:

U.S. Needs More Commercial Spectrum to Lead on AI and Reindustrialization

In which they recommend…:

“The 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)… requir(es) the auction of at least 800 MHz of licensed spectrum by 2034. (This is) inadequate for U.S. businesses to meet the challenges of artificial intelligence (AI) and reindustrialization….

“The Trump administration should focus on transferring spectrum held by the federal government to the private sector and set an ambitious new goal to auction 1,000 MHz by January 2029.”

Yes, please.

All of that would be a dramatic improvement of the US’s “Operating Environment.”

And undoubtedly increase our chances of continuing to stay ahead of China in the perpetual wireless race.

Listening to friends - of the foreign or domestic variety - helps considerably with one’s perspective.

And in life, nearly everything is a matter of perspective.

Here’s what we know:

The world gets about 20% of its oil via the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait has been closed or nearly closed since the United States launched its war with Iran.

That launch date was February 28th. Today is July 13th. We’re approaching five months of little to no oil getting through the Strait.

That’s so far resulted in 1+ billion fewer barrels in global circulation.

Here’s what we don’t seem to know:

We seem to be nowhere near an end to the war - or the Strait’s closure. And even when we are told we were near an end to the closure?

Like, say, with the irrational exuberance on rampant display with June 14th’s “Memorandum of Understanding?”

Like, say, with the ridiculous number of times President Donald Trump has lied about being close to a peace deal (38 times - and that’s just the tally prior to the “Memorandum of Understanding”).

Most of us have been pretending that once the Strait reopens - everything will simply and immediately snap back to normal. Heck, most of us still are pretending.

Far too many Americans have for months been taking victory laps about oil and gas prices. Most of which are predicated upon President Trump’s many lies and falsehoods. None of which are predicated upon anything having to do with reality.

Reality: You can not skip five months’ (and counting) worth of Strait oil - and simply return to pre-war normal.

The Strait’s closure is a great and growing air bubble in the world’s oil supply line. The bubble doesn’t just disappear when the war ends and the Strait reopens (whenever that will eventually be). It will still be there. And it will have to work its way through the system.

Thanks to many desperate moves by many countries all around the world? The bubble’s arrival has been delayed. But it can not be permanently denied:

“The world has absorbed with surprising ease the loss of over a billion barrels of oil supply since the Iran war began, but…it still faces the looming risk of future price spikes….

“While prices may reflect expectations of a rapid return to pre-war supply levels, data on tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz tells a different, more pessimistic story….

“The global economy weathered the shock by drawing down stocks at a record pace, according to IEA data, draining the very buffers designed to protect it from supply crises….

“Replenishing oil stocks, never cheap, has likely been made more expensive by the war.

“Before the conflict, the European Central Bank had estimated 2027-2028 oil prices at $63 to $64 per barrel. That’s now risen to an average of $65 to $75, according to an ECB report published in June.

“At current Brent prices, it would likely cost more than $70 billion to replace reserves drawn down to mitigate Iran war supply loss….

“(U)ntil that is done, the world is operating without a safety net in an environment still fraught with uncertainty.

“‘The markets may be underestimating the risk of further oil flow disruptions,’ said Saul Kavonic, head of research at MST Marquee.”

“Underestimating?” Gee…ya think?

All of the above reminds of two great quotes from minds of the past. Who were much more in tune with the real world than far too many of us are today.

“You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”

-- Ayn Rand

“Eventually everybody sits down to a banquet of consequences.”

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

It’s time to lobster bib up. Reality’s meal is about to be delivered.

This also appeared in The Daily Caller and The Daily Caller News Foundation.