2025

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (December 1, 2025) The subject of this month’s blog has to do with how corporations legally avoid paying taxes worldwide.  This is the reason why so much of the wealth in the world has been literally transferred from the middle classes not just to the upper classes but specifically to the oligarchy of the small but very powerful billionaire class of about 3,000 individuals and families around the globe. This is the highest level of what one would call estate planning – something which concerns everyone on the planet.  The most basic form of an estate plan is for someone to write and sign a last will and testament.  Even if someone has no financial or physical wealth this person would need a last will and testament if they have children.  They would state who would raise their minor children in the event of their incapacity or death – say siblings (aunts and uncles) or parents (grandparents of the children). The second level of estate planning which also concerns everyone (even people with little or no financial or physical wealth) is something called a living will or medical power of attorney.  In the even one becomes incapacitated or one has a terminal health condition a person should state if they do or do not want to kept “artificially” alive.  Most people would say “no” but in any case this is a very necessary and important decision to make. The third level of estate planning concerns everyone with financial and physical assets.  In the event of a death if one only has a last will and testament these assets will go into legal probate – a very expensive and lengthy process which eats up too much money and time and leaves legal heirs in an…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (November 1, 2025) The fiscal predicament of the American federal government continued to deteriorate at an alarming rate in the month of September 2025.  At least 60 percent of what the federal government now spends is money we do not have – brand new debt in the form of credit created out of thin air and backed by nothing.  The amount of “new” debt issued in calendar year 2025 equals the following:  US Treasuries = $5.657 TRILLION, federal agency securities = $1.6926 TRILLION and municipal bonds = $0.6762 TRILLION = a grand total of USD $8.0258 TRILLION.  The federal government portion alone = USD $7.3496 TRILLION.  Tax receipts in calendar year 2024 were USD $4.9 TRILLION and they are falling this year due to the collapsing economy and due to the “big beautiful” tax cuts plus a 40 percent staff cut at the IRS.  Here is a 24-minute video detailing the upcoming collapse of the bond market featuring speakers such as Jamie Dimon and Ray Dalio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwOuTMa9iLs&t=1127s.  The reports in late October 2025 with respect to the increase in the national debt of the USA have gotten even worse.  The national debt of the federal government has surpassed USD $38 TRILLION and it surpassed USD $37 TRILLION only two (2) months ago.  If this is the case tax revenues have to be collapsing due to multiple reasons: the so-called tax cuts in the “Big Beautiful Bill,” tariff revenue in no way making up for these cuts, no taxpayer audits being done at the IRS (due to the government shutdown and due to reduced human resources / personnel), and on top of all this a collapse in consumer spending which leads to a collapse in economic activity which leads to a collapse in government tax…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (October 1, 2025) The labor market is facing lethal headwinds not just due to the impending deflationary collapse (like the “Great Depression” from 1929 although it will be much more severe this time around) but due to the rise of “Artificial Intelligence” (AI).  Here is a video with a chilling message – forecasting global unemployment of not merely 10 percent but of a staggering 99 percent:  https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOK9DmVAFxC/?igsh=MTliNGVuOHB6NWV6Yg%3D%3D. As I said in my September 2025 monthly blog, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” is a terrible mistake.  Many people who voted for both of the two major American political parties feel this way – this is not strictly a political issue.  Ideally the entire bill should be overturned, the tax cuts especially for corporations rescinded and the cuts in social programs restored to their previous levels.  The majority of the population depends upon the major entitlement programs for their basis sustenance and here I refer to the likes of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Healthcare Act (“Obamacare”) and SNAP (“Food Stamps”).  We are still at a point where the cost of living is rising and purchasing power is falling, so we are not yet at a point where these programs can be cut.  Furthermore it is a huge mistake to increase the military budget to USD $1 TRILLION – this should be cut by at least 90 percent.  We simply cannot afford this madness. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a fantasy.  It is real and it is already in the process of permanently displacing millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions and eventually billions of workers all over the planet.  It is also helping to make the centi-billionaire, the deca-billionaire, the billionaire, centi-millionaire and deca-millionaire class ever wealthier and more powerful.  These are the…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (September 1, 2025) The recently passed so-called “big beautiful bill” has net interest payments on the national debt of the USA (federal government only – does not include state & local governments, nonprofit organizations or the so-called private economy of corporations and individuals) making up an incredible 18 percent of federal government revenues.  What is the rest?  Here it is: Social Security (31 percent), Medicare (18 percent), National Defense = War (17 percent), and Medicaid (13 percent).  This equals 97 percent.  There is actually much more in many smaller programs but we would go well over 100 percent due to the annual deficit = i.e., spending much more money than we have. What does this mean?  The Western Roman Empire fell in A.D. 476, the Eastern Roman Empire fell in 1453, the Aztec Empire fell in 1521, the Inca Empire fell in 1572, the Mexican Empire fell in 1867, the French Empire fell in 1870, the Korean Empire fell in 1910, the Tsarist Russian Empire fell in 1917, Austria-Hungary fell in 1918, the Prussian-German colonial empire fell in 1920, the Ottoman Turkish Empire fell in 1922, Nazi Germany fell in 1945, the Empire of Japan fell in 1947, the USSR collapsed in 1991 and the USA is not far off. Everyone should ignore the mouthpieces of the Administration in Washington, D.C. and the mainstream media.  This YouTube channel by Michael Bordenaro normally comes out of Florida where he lives.  This particular episode was recorded in Marin County, California but what he says about the current economy, employment market and real property market is one hundred percent factual and true:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rIXyAlkhRo&t=760s.  Things are extremely bad (not just somewhat bad or a little bad) and they are about to get very much worse. Yet another YouTube…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (August 1, 2025) The peak of the global real estate market likely happened during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021.  This was an entirely unnatural and unhealthy situation from many standpoints, especially the way it was handled by governments around the world.  In hindsight, social distancing, face masks, remote work from home, vaccine mandates and “stimulus” (printed money which went mainly to those in the top tier of the population) were all terrible ideas.  The stimulus and the remote work from home mandates in particular made people do things they never should have done.  In the case of the real estate market, people moved to places they never should have moved to in the first place. The payback time for these bad decisions is now upon us.  Nicholas Gerli of the “Reventure Consulting” channel seen on YouTube says that the first phase of the crash is with us now and he is entirely correct.  The property markets I follow specifically in New York, New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, Arizona, New Mexico and California have already fallen by as much as 48 percent in value.  These markets include metro areas such as greater New York, Hampton Roads-Tidewater, Atlanta, Phoenix, Tucson, Santa Fe and the San Francisco Bay Area.  Keep in mind that we are merely in the first phase of this asset value collapse – we have yet to experience the second phase which will obliterate whatever happens to be left over.  Understand that the many real estate investment giants who “guestimate” values (such as Zillow, Realtor, Redfin, Xome, Trulia, etc.) already have so-called values over a very broad range – from pie-in-the-sky too high to rock bottom and below for cash on the barrel.  The current state of the economy (pretty much worldwide…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (July 1, 2025) Like it or not, the entire global financial system is now in the midst of a major multi-generational reset.  The world’s financial weight or center of financial power has been and continues to shift toward Asia – Mainland China, India, the ASEAN nations of Southeast Asia, the Middle East / Persian Gulf and Russia / Central Asia / Siberia.  A multipolar world is in the process of replacing the historical US dominance which goes back to 1944 when the USA replaced the UK as the number one global financial center of power.  The global dominance of the UK endured from 1588 to 1944.  The Royal Navy’s defeat of the Spanish Armada (navy) is the generally accepted milestone for this event.  The Roman Catholic powers of the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Frankish Kingdom (which eventually became the “Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation” which included much of modern day Central Europe) was the primary financial power (in the western world) before the British Empire.  This in no way minimizes the power or the accomplishments with great respect to the very advanced and even older civilizations / empires in Egypt and Mesopotamia / Iraq (the “Semites”), India, China (the great “Middle Kingdom”), the Inca Empire of South America and of course the great Aztec and Toltec Empires of Central America. One very positive sign amidst the debt, deficit, liquidity problems and fiat currency problems especially in the USA, Europe and Mainland China is the fact that gold bullion now represents an impressive 3.95 percent of all global financial assets.  This is happening in particular because gold reserves are being bolstered by Mainland China, Hong Kong (part of China), Dubai (part of the United Arab Emirates), Malaysia, Singapore,…

Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (June 1, 2025) The tariffs on retail consumer goods from Mainland China for sale on Amazon have added 17.46 percent to the total purchase price compared to the end of March 2025 before any tariffs were in place.  The tariffs were a sky-high 70 percent for a few weeks in April and May before the “agreement” with China.  It looks like goods from Europe (the European Union) may now be subject to very high 50 percent tariffs – they have been postponed only until early July 2025 pending talks and negotiations. The bond markets tell us that interest rates will rise largely because the US federal budget deficit continues to rise into the stratosphere as it has done for the past quarter century.  Even the “balanced budget” of 25 years ago was not really balanced – it merely “removed” the major entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare from the official calculation which is not an honest representation of the truth.  The last true “balanced budget” would take us back more than 50 years in time.  In any case, we are in one hell of mess. The geopolitical shenanigans of the American empire over the past years, decades and even centuries have finally motivated most of the rest of the world to move away from using the US Dollar as the primary means of monetary trade and from using the currency as the primary reserve currency just as the British Pound Sterling lost its status toward the end of World War Two with Bretton Woods in July 1944.  The rest of the world led by the BRICS, the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) and the Chinese BRI (Belt Road Initiative) are already well underway in abandoning the American Dollar.  They represent about 86 percent…