By Erik Wallbank – April 24, 2025
What do we do with gold down $100 and silver up a buck? We can wait to hear what Bill Holter and Andy Schectman have to say, or we can just cut to the chase. Gold goes down 100 bucks because some steam gets let out of the pressure cooker. With silver at a 100 to 1 ratio to gold, and silver being used up, keeping the price of silver down is like a finger in the dike. It's the interpretations that are fun. Trump, as part of his grand chess master plan makes a pivot, accounting for the movement of the metals. Or Trump, with no idea what he's doing, on the same side with whatever Netanyahu says, blusters and blunders onward.
As above - so below, in a world turned upside down. Wherein, like the disappearing middle class, rational beings now occupy only the short middle along a continuum, crushed from both the right and the left by mindless, unquestioning, ideologue hordes. The crush is not aghast when Trump has 75 nations lined up to kiss his ass and call him 'Sir'. And not abjectly disappointed when JD Vance talks about borrowing dollars from Chinese peasants to buy goods made by Chinese peasants. Instead, I'm accused of going after Trump too early. Give him some time they say . . . is Trump giving the world time? It's too bad Trump was attacked so harshly by the left because, like many who've been victimized, he's opting (like Bibi) to be a victimizer - with a mandate to make for a return to the “American way” - except Trump is not a Constitution or Bill of Rights advocate.
Some years back I travelled to Pierre, South Dakota, where the unimaginably wide Missouri River winds its way through the middle of town, along the Lewis and Clark Trail. At the time Kristi Noem, the governor, was considering a run for president, and being disassociated with reality I thought I might advise her to to go her own way – to not be such a Trumper. While there, what I found were locals who did not care for her, beginning with a chain-link fence she had installed between the governor's mansion and the river. As it turns out, for what she wanted, she had chosen the right path. Cleaving onto Trump she is now the head of the most bloated and useless appendage of US tyranny, Homeland Security. At a cost of $60B a year it does nothing noticeable for the US, unless one agrees with Trump and supports Kristi's brownshirts pulling 1,400 students from colleges (largely unnoticed), having their student visas removed, imprisoning them, deporting them home - or worse.
This is domestic application of the 'as above - so below' model for US policy. First you get a president with little intention to address campaign promises, who instead, having adopted Israel genocide madness, does his part to quell 1st Amendment redress of grievances - putting a stop to free speech. And because the American body politic is so stupid, a mean little snark, Marco Rubio, implemented by Noem, moves under a curtain of obscurity, bringing fear to any students protesting against genocide.
That's domestically. On the global front, consider Ukraine. The reason Russia invaded Ukraine was not NATO infringing on its borders. That would have been illegal under the UN Charter. Russia invaded for something legal under the UN Charter. What happened to Russians who found themselves displaced after the Soviet Union collapsed, within the borders and control of nations often hostile to Russians? They were 2nd class (or not) citizens, subject to abuse. In some places, like Lithuania, they were not eligible for a passport. Worst of all for Russian speakers was Ukraine. With the US sponsored coup of 2014 Ukrainian Russians were subject to slaughter in the Donbass region – 14,000+ were killed. In 2024 Ukraine passed a law wherein Russians did not have Ukrainian rights. In 2022, after 8 years of injustice for Russians in Ukraine, Putin went in. The art of the deal concerning Ukraine is bullshit - as in backdating the check the US wrote for Ukraine to destroy Russia to now take away Ukrainian sovereignty.
Trump says tariffs are to balance trade? Not true, his tariffs coerce others to pay for a US profligate spending joy-ride. Under his policy, nations selling more to the US than they buy (from a nation with ever-diminishing production) are deserving of blame. African nations with an unfavorable trade deficit with the US are tariffed. Some of the poorest nations get the highest tariffs. Meanwhile, China places no tariffs on African nations. Americans on the left and the right play the lead roles in Dumb and Dumber, and it is yet to be decided which political party will prevail in the number of humans murdered and bankrupted. Just in case you were thinking that under Trump DEI has been traded for meritocracy, the measure of success is whether or not you support Trump – unconditionally. If Trump prevails in the tariff war the world will be degraded by his actions. He will not rectify a wrong with reciprocal tariffs. He will have unilaterally strong-armed the world to take the blame for a second “Roaring 20s” lifestyle and spending. Any nations taking a knee to this madness need be aware that neither US nor Trump is agreement capable.
Who in American history is Trump patterned on? Obama was made in the mold of Woodrow Wilson, exhibiting deep inhuman undercurrents. Trump is more the dumber version of Teddy Roosevelt - walking softly, but without the big stick he thinks he has. Many of my readers are fans of Trump, or at the very least find him wildly entertaining. I might join in were it it not for an aversion to human suffering. How can Americans support Trump's strong-arm tariffs or Yemeni murder? Have we lost our hearts and souls?
Will adding another trillion to the US debt make America great again? The Pentagon budget reminds me of a description by Hunter S. Thompson from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, where he talks about a hill west of Vegas, where, if you stand on the top, you can see where the wave of the 60's broke and receded . . . never making it to Vegas. That wave is the Pentagon budget, that gets cut in half because we come to working relationships with Iran, Russia, and China, no longer necessitating ever greater weapons spending. If Trump wants a legacy of peace, he has to go against his oligarchs, because the Pentagon does nothing to 'defend' the USA. The US military has a mission and a primary function - to interfere in the sovereignty of other countries.
I ran into an old friend (we'd sing “Kansas City” at parties) and I told him I'd driven to Daytona Beach and back. No red states for him. Twelve years of Obama and Biden - that's his reality?
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