Patriotism Doesn’t Pay, But Loyalty to The State Does

Twenty Years After the Iraq Invasion, Dubya and Blair are living it up! [The Rude Awakening] March 21, 2023 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Patriotism Doesn’t Pay, But Loyalty to The State Does - The Bush Family had already been wealthy for generations. - But Tony Blair is now worth GBP 60 million ($73 million). - All while Julian Assange rots behind bars. [Urgent: Currency Wars Alert]( “Worst case scenario is almost inevitable” -Former Pentagon Insider Jim Rickards In my 2011 book, I warned that the U.S. was engaged in a currency war. And that these wars: “Degenerate into sequential bouts of inflation, recession, retaliation and actual violence as the scramble for resources leads toinvasion and war. ” Now with Putin invading Ukraine…Rising tensions with China… Inflation, recession, and supply chain issues all hitting the U.S. economy at the same time. It seems as if some of my worst fears have finally come true. [That’s why I’ve recorded an urgent video message.]( To update you on exactly what you need to be doing to protect yourself. Because if history is any indicator, this will not end well. [Click here to view my urgent video message.]( [Click Here To Learn More]( [Sean Ring] SEAN RING Happy Tuesday! I was going to write about the Credit Suisse debacle today. Believe me; there’s plenty more to be said about that particular vintage of banker idiocy. And we’re nowhere near done with our banking troubles. Rumor has it that the FDIC is indeed exploring ways to insure all deposits in the United States. Like all things socialistic, it sounds good at first but will deliver a solution opposite to the one intended. I’ll save it for another day. Because it’s been twenty years since the USG drained its Treasury and started printing money out of thin air to finance an unwinnable war. The Iraq War II was predicated on a lie, started by an idiot, and prosecuted by lunatics. What made it worse was that the US didn’t want to go it alone. The US wanted to form another “coalition of the willing” like the first time. But none of our allies thought Dubya had a brain in his head. Not even the Brits, but that didn’t stop them. London’s only foreign policy then, as now, is to do everything America does with more enthusiasm and better pronunciation. It’s only one of the reasons the UK is in the diplomatic hole it’s in right now. The Europeans are still pissed off about Brexit, their former colonies can’t stand them, and the US finds the UK rather useless at the moment. But let’s journey back to when I still had brown hair and the US had the moral high ground: 2003. If My President Says It One of the things that drives me nuts is when I look back on my naiveté. In 2003, I was 28 years old, living in London, and working for one of the world’s bulge bracket banks (alas, no more). And I still said stupid shit like, “If my President says we need to invade, then we need to invade.” And it was Dubya, for crying out loud… Oh, the shame of it all! What’s more, Londoners had organized a Million Man March in London against the war. But UK Prime Minister Tony Blair was all for the war. Blair made up some nonsense about Saddam having weapons that could reach the UK in only forty-five minutes. Blair wasn’t just enthusiastic about the war but positively foaming at the mouth. Get Up the White House’s “Arse” At the time, I didn’t understand right away. I always considered the Brits the elder statesmen, the cooler heads who’d prevail over any American hotheads. But since the UK was far weaker than in the past - yup, they love their welfare state over there - London’s only option was to back America on every move. “We want you to get up the arse of the White House and stay there,” is the instruction UK Ambassador to the US Christopher [Meyer alleges he received]( from Blair's chief of staff, Jonathan Powell. Men like MP George Galloway were ridiculed at the time. French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder were ignored. These men were patriots. They were loyal to their countries. The term “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” was applied to the French. Freedom fries - for God’s sake - made the rounds. I remember American friends telling me they wouldn’t drink Grey Goose vodka, made in France… as if it tasted good in the first place! But not in the UK. Once the march was over, everyone quietly resigned themselves to the war and didn’t spit on any soldiers. But once the fighting was over, the UK conducted the Chilcot Inquiry. The Iraq Inquiry (also called the Chilcot Inquiry after its chairman, Sir John Chilcot) was a British public inquiry into the nation's role in the Iraq War. Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced the investigation in 2009, and in 2016 it was published. From [Wikipedia]( The report – described by BBC News as "damning,” by The Guardian as a "crushing verdict,” and by The Telegraph as "scathing" – was broadly critical of the actions of the British government and military in making the case for the war, in tactics and in planning for the aftermath of the Iraq War. Richard Norton-Taylor of The Guardian wrote that the report "could hardly be more damning" of Tony Blair and "was an unprecedented, devastating indictment of how a prime minister was allowed to make decisions by discarding all pretense at cabinet government, subverting the intelligence agencies, and making exaggerated claims about threats to Britain's national security.” The whole war was a sham and a costly one at that. [“Biden Blackouts” coming this winter?]( [Click here to learn more]( A former advisor to the CIA and Pentagon just made this dark prediction: Calamity Joe’s sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline [His Evidence Here]( was suicide. In the next 75 days, Americans will face fuel shortages… …widespread blackouts… …empty grocery shelves… …up to $1000 energy bills… …drained retirement accounts, and… …a massive crime wave. This former CIA advisor says most Americans will suffer this winter. But a few will WIN big from the turmoil. [Here’s how to be one of them](. [Click Here To Learn More]( So How Much Did the War Cost? Luckily, we have independent analysts keeping track of this stuff. Here’s what @CostsOfWar have found so far: [SJN] Credit: [@CostsOfWar]( Remember this exchange (via [@BillHighland57]( March 2003 interview RUMSFELD: The Office of Management and Budget estimated it [the cost of war] would be something under $50 billion. STEPHANOPOULOS: Outside estimates say up to $300 billion. RUMSFELD: Baloney. $50 billion… Well, Donnie Unknowns, the DoD operations themselves cost nearly $900 billion! The interest alone on the war spending was nearly 5x your $50 billion. Never trust politicians with numbers. They’re purposely innumerate. The UK spent much less but also has a much smaller economy: [sjn] Credit: [The Independent]( And the highest cost of all: [SJN] [SJN] Credit: [The Independent]( We’re not in Maddie “It was worth killing 500,000 kids” Albright territory, but it’s still pretty bad. And all on a war that was supposed to be about WMDs, but was really about oil. Wrap Up I’m pretty sure Dubya and Blair aren’t “patriots.” But, Dubya paints, while his family’s fortune is between $400 and $ 500 million. And Tony Blair, well, he keeps moving his lips to the tune of $73 million. Oh, I forgot one critical statistic… The number of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) found was zero. Let’s not forget Colin Powell’s eternal damnation for lying. Maybe one day, Julian Assange will escape and tell us more. Let’s hope for that. In the meantime, know that crime does pay, especially in the service of The State. All the best, [Sean Ring] Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening In Case You Missed It… Flyover Lives Matter! [Sean Ring] SEAN RING Happy Monday! Last night, we returned from France. It was a fantastic trip. We visited Nice, St. Paul de Vence, Monaco, and Menton (the last French city before the Italian border). All of those cities were amazing for different reasons. Nice, with its Old City and Promenade des Anglais, was everything I had hoped since watching To Catch a Thief. [SJN] The view of the Promenade des Anglais and the Cote d’Azur from our hotel room. St. Paul de Vence is a walled city on a hill about 20 minutes from Nice. Pam and I had overdosed on YouTube travel porn videos of it for years. We finally got there, and it didn’t disappoint. [SJN] A “street” in St. Paul de Vence Menton is a city on the France-Italy border with its own microclimate. It’s famous for its lemons, which grow practically year-round. We ate a lovely lunch in a restaurant owned by an Italian named Claudio. [SJN] Mrs. Ring frolicking in Menton. But Monaco, the principality itself, surrounded by France but not part of it, stunned us. And with Janet Yellen’s testimony on Thursday fresh in my mind, I couldn’t help but think of the flyover states. You may be thinking, “What on earth can Monaco have to do with Oklahoma?” Well, let me show you my thinking. [[CHART] Could Inflation Hit 20%+ In 2023?]( [Click here to learn more]( Take a close look at this scary chart pictured here… What you see is the money supply in America… And as you can see, the number of dollars in circulation has exploded in the last few years. In fact, more than 80% of all dollars to ever exist have been printed since just 2020 alone! Which is why some say inflation could soon explode even higher than it is now, to 20% or more. And if you’re at or near retirement age you must take action now to protect yourself… otherwise you risk losing everything. [Simply click here now to see how to survive America’s deadly inflation crisis](. [Click Here To Learn More]( Yellen’s Admission Remember in 2017 when Janet Yellen said there would be [no more financial crises in our lifetimes]( In her defense, she probably didn’t think she’d live this long. I certainly didn’t think she would. Useless Yellen always looks like she’s got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. Despite that, let’s face it, if she were an Egyptian goddess, her name would be “crISIS.” The latest screw-up comes via testimony with Oklahoma Senator James Lankford. He rightly asked if all the deposits at community banks in Oklahoma would be treated the same way that SIVB’s or Signature Bank’s deposits are treated. Yellen admitted that Oklahoma banks were not. It takes a supermajority at the FDIC, a supermajority at the Fed, and the Treasury Secretary herself, in consultation with the President, to bail out a bank. Watch the video below to see just how far out of the club you are. [Click here to learn more]( Credit and click to watch the idiocy: [@SeidlerCorp]( I’m going to say it right here: Flyover Lives Matter! Why on earth would you bail out SIVB and Signature, but not a farmers’ bank in the Midwest? Don’t these DC numbskulls know the Midwest feeds America? And this is where I started thinking about Monaco. A Bit of Monaco’s History No, Monaco doesn’t feed France. It’s the most densely populated sovereign state in the world. Because if you’ve got enough money, you want to be there. No income or inheritance tax. Lovely. But it wasn’t always like this. In fact, this part of the French (and formerly Italian) coast used to be dirt poor. A monaco is a “monk” in Italian. A member of the House of Grimaldi - Prince Albert II’s family - first ruled Monaco in 1297. That’s when Francesco Grimaldi, known as "Malizia" (translated from Italian either as "The Malicious One" or "The Cunning One"), and his men captured the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco while dressed as Franciscan friars. This is a tremendous historical coincidence - or perhaps gave the Grimaldis the idea - as this area was known as Monaco since it was a Phocaean Greek colony. But there wasn’t much there… until Princess Caroline had the bright idea of building a casino. Finished in 1868, the Casino de Monte Carlo is probably the world’s most famous casino. [SJN] Credit: Sean Ring It saved the Grimaldi family from financial ruin and established Monaco as the place to be in the Mediterranean. Only recently did the Casino cease to be the Royal family’s primary source of income. And thanks to the casino’s revenues, Monaco’s citizens no longer had to pay income tax. Rainier and Grace After Grace Kelly filmed one of my favorite movies of all time, To Catch a Thief, Prince Rainier was in love. Not only was Kelly one of Hollywood’s great beauties, but she was the daughter of John C. Kelly, who owned a successful brickwork contracting company. I’m sure Rainier didn’t care, but having a rich wife must have been nice. Their match lent Monaco an elegance it never had before. People from all over the world started to flock there. France Threatens Monaco Of course, when high-tax losers get pissed off at low-tax winners, threats usually fly. Charles de Gaulle was angry so many Frenchmen were running to Monaco to avoid his onerous tax regime. So he blockaded Monaco. It was a joke of a blockade, and no one was harmed, to be sure. But de Gaulle only relented when Rainier promised to keep Frenchmen out of Monaco so they’d pay their tax to the French Treasury. As Murray Rothbard would reiterate, “The State is a gang of thieves writ large.” Will Midwest Community Banks Be Emptied? I don’t think so. But growing Midwestern companies with far more than $250,000 in the bank will surely migrate to a Big Four bank to know their money is safe. And that isn’t good for honest, entrepreneurial bank managers in the Midwest. That angers me to no end because who knows if there’s another Monaco story right around the corner? Who knows if that Midwest entrepreneurial story would have grown to be much, much bigger than tiny Monaco? Frederic Bastiat would call that the “unseen.” Wrap Up I know I was going to write about the rosé wine I was going to drink. They were ok but unremarkable. So nothing to report there, alas. But watch this week to see how the market reacts to the “my friends get a bailout, but you don’t” backstop. It’ll be informative insofar as the banking and credit sector goes. Equity markets have held up surprisingly well. Until tomorrow. All the best, [Sean Ring] Sean Ring Editor, Rude Awakening [Paradigm]( ☰ ⊗ [ARCHIVE]( [ABOUT]( [Contact Us]( © 2023 Paradigm Press, LLC. 808 Saint Paul Street, Baltimore MD 21202. By submitting your email address, you consent to Paradigm Press, LLC. delivering daily email issues and advertisements. To end your Rude Awakening e-mail subscription and associated external offers sent from Rude Awakening, feel free to [click here.]( Please note: the mailbox associated with this email address is not monitored, so do not reply to this message. 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