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In the 6th century BC, during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II, Babylon flourished as a center of power, culture, and commerce. We know this because the Babylonians were exceptional record keepers. And they chiseled everything down onto cuneiform tablets, many of which have survived through today. Sadly the tablets aren’t tabloids. They don’t
On October 23, 1944, a formidable US naval fleet sailed past the Philippine island of Leyte with more than 300 battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, and submarines. Their objective was to secure the island’s strategic gulf to support the Allied amphibious invasion (which would ultimately liberate the Philippines from Japanese occupation). Plus they
The Fed Chairman was flush with praise yesterday over the stupendous state of the US economy. The economy is in a “good place”, he told reporters at a press conference after announcing a 50-basis point (0.5%) interest rate cut. The labor market is “strong”. Inflation is “coming down”. They’re “confident” about the future
At some point early in 2011, I received a frantic phone call from a woman who was terrified that then-President Obama was going to “close the borders”. She had apparently been reading some pretty dark forums on the Internet which had convinced her that Obama was going to prevent all US citizens from
This is an anomaly we haven’t seen before. Gold just hit yet another all-time high. But what’s strange is that, if you look at gold’s supply and demand fundamentals, the price should almost be falling. Not rising. I’ll explain— On the supply side, gold production is actually increasing slightly. The largest miner in
The US Department of Transportation clearly has a lot on its plate. America’s infrastructure is not in great shape. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) grades America’s roads, bridges, and public transportation a C- overall. In fact 42% of US bridges are at least 50 years old, and nearly 7.5% are considered
Taylor Swift’s announcement pretty much said it all. After last night’s Presidential debate, the pop star publicly endorsed Kamala Harris because “she is a steady-handed, gifted leader” who fights for “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body. . .” I really try to keep an open mind and understand
When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s, my father used to go every summer for two weeks of military training as part of his commitment to the US Army Reserve. And whenever he flew home, we would always meet him at the airport. But back then, my mom, sister, and
It’s been three years since the guy with five decades of experience ordered his top military generals, against their advice, to rush their withdrawal out of Afghanistan. So in their haste to comply with the boss’s orders, the US military abandoned billions of dollars worth of equipment— aircraft, guns, tanks— and left it
You wouldn’t be especially impressed by someone’s insight if they told you that the world today is full of turmoil. That’s obvious— from wars and cultural clashes to cost of living crises and a pervasive sense of negativity. More impressive is that William Strauss and Neil Howe predicted that the 2020’s would be
I wanted to do a bit of a deeper dive today on the topic of the national debt— and answer a basic question: is the debt a terminal problem? Or is it still fixable? I actually had a bit of a debate on the topic with my friend and partner Peter Schiff last
It’s impossible to forget those iconic images from the late summer of 2021— helicopters over the US embassy in Afghanistan. Locals dangling from the landing gear of US Air Force cargo planes desperately trying to escape. The US military frantically packing up their gear to leave the country. It had only been a
Over eight hundred years ago, in what is now northwestern China, the Uyghur people— long before they were carted off to internment camps by the Communist Party— ruled their own independent kingdom, known as Qocho. Then, in the year 1209, Genghis Khan sent diplomatic emissaries to Qocho. The message was clear: the Great
It almost sounded like an apology. Almost. On Friday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell stood in front of reporters and explained how we got here… and how inflation took hold. To be fair, he rightly diagnosed the root causes: extreme government spending and money printing during the pandemic. And then, when the economy
“Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.” The world of George Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four is divided into three totalitarian superpowers: Oceania, Eurasia, and EastAsia. And the novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, is a mid-level bureaucrat within Oceania’s “Ministry of Truth”. Early in the book we
