"The common refrain is that war is a breeding ground of unintended consequences. It is greater than that. War is a super-human force that will make an agent of those who foolishly and recklessly believe in their own agency. That truth will be revealed again in the coming war in Venezuela.
The last two years, I have been affected by the intersection of the biblical Massacre of the Holy Innocents with the genocide in Gaza. It is the story of the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt, their lives as refugees and as strangers in a foreign land, and the persecution of refugees and immigrants in our land today that possesses me this Christmas season."
Matthew Hoh, No Best Case Scenario, December 17, 2025
A third approach, the one dominant among economists and policy pundits, is based on the notion that the rulers of Egypt simply don’t know what is needed to make their country prosperous, and have followed incorrect policies and strategies in the past. If these rulers would only get the right advice from the right advisers, the thinking goes, prosperity would follow. To these academics and pundits, the fact that Egypt has been ruled by narrow elites feathering their nests at the expense of society seems irrelevant to understanding the country’s economic problems.
Egypt is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who possess it. The losers have been the Egyptian people, as they only too well understand. Whether it is North Korea, Sierra Leone, or Zimbabwe, we’ll show that poor countries are poor for the same reason that Egypt is poor.
Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where the government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities.
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fail, 2012
"People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason. But the privileged also feel that their privileges, however egregious they may seem to others, are a solemn, basic, God-given right,"
John Kenneth Galbraith, The Age of Uncertainty, 1977
"Pride, and a love of self and of power, makes families homeless — and in its rage murders innocents, as it was then and it is now. The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustained recovery."
Jesse, The Holy Innocents, 28 December 2018
We know what is the best case scenario. We were given it, in some detail, over 2000 years ago. But it involves the veneration of the light of the Holy Spirit among us — and goodness has its enemies.
Without meaningful reform, freedom will continue to diminish in the encroachment of fraudulent abuse, the financial system will falter with malinvestment, and the general prosperity of the nation will narrow, until it fails.
As a reminder tomorrow is the stock option expiration for December.
I suspect the big drama about Trump's speech last night, based on 'leaks' from supposedly informed government representatives, was pretty much a setup for a wash and rinse.
Stocks popped a bit and then faded into the close a bit.
The economic news on inflation this morning was positive. Most people positively did not believe them because their discounting of inflated items was there to see.
Gold and silver popped up to new highs overnight, with silver topped $67 for the first time.
But as is customary, the wiseguys sold them in the London-NY trade.
They'll keep playing this scenario until there pools collapses of exhaustion.
VIX fell of course.
The Dollar chopped around in the mid 98 area.
What happened to German soldiers who refused to follow the order to murder innocent civilians and unarmed prisoners? Sometimes the law prevailed.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
Have a pleasant evening.
