Hola Libertinus ~

Will they? Won’t they?

Who knows what twists and turns remain in the Elon/Trump bromance-gone-sour, but let’s not forget how it started...

One of the few breakup posts that Musk hasn’t deleted, a swipe at Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”

And you know what? Kudos to the Efficiency Czar for taking a stand.

Honestly, this post might qualify as one of the only ideologically coherent political stances of the modern era.

Turns out, the lone billionaire in the room was the only one pointing at the debt bomb and saying.. “Maybe don’t sit on that.”

TL;DR: Washington just passed the largest peacetime spending bill in U.S. history, Elon rage-quit in a mud-slinging hissy fit, and somehow this is the kind of “fiscal responsibility” the right loves to grandstand about.

So grab a drink, settle in, and let’s talk about the train that’s already left the station...

🤿 DEEP DIVE: OBx3

Math That'll Make You Weep

Let me paint you a picture with numbers that'll make a CBO staffer reach for the bottle...

• Current national debt: $36.2 trillion and climbing
  

• Interest payments this year: $952 billion—that's more than we spend on the entire Pentagon (...and we spend Pentagon money like drunken sailors at a strip club).
  

• New debt from the “beautiful” bill: Between $2.4 and $3.8 trillion over the next decade, depending on which economist you ask
  

• Debt ceiling bump included: $4 trillion, because why pretend there are limits?

Read that again, because it's important: We'll soon spend more to cover past irresponsibility than we spend on our entire military. Let that marinate for a second.

The Two Ways This Ends

So where does this runaway debt train actually go?

Spoiler alert: there are only two stops (and neither of them has snacks).

Option 1: Explicit Default Station

We hit the wall. Treasury runs dry. Payments stop. Markets seize. Pensions vanish.

The global credit system has a full-blown cardiac event.

Think 2008, but instead of "too big to fail" banks, it's the U.S. government that can't pay its bills.

Option 2: Hyper Inflation Station

We "pay" the debt... by nuking the currency.

The Fed fires up the money printer until the dollar becomes as valuable as Monopoly money.

Your savings get obliterated through inflation (and politicians can claim they "technically" didn't default).

There is no Option 3.

There’s no secret station called “Grow Our Way Out.”

Unless AI exceeds the hype, takes all our jobs, placates the plebs with UBI, and starts giving us handjobs (shoutout to Silicon Valley), productivity isn’t outrunning compound interest on $36 trillion.

The math doesn't work, nor does it care about your politics.

It just keeps compounding—quietly, ruthlessly, until the wheels come off.

How Inflation Became the Ultimate Stealth Tax

Here’s the part they really don’t want you thinking about:

Inflation is the perfect tax.

It doesn’t require a vote. No hearings. No debates. No dramatic hearings captured on C-SPAN.

Just a quiet siphon on everything you’ve ever earned.

Every new dollar they print siphons buying power from the dollars you already earned.

It's the perfect crime—they get to spend money they don't have, and you get to pay for it through $10 eggs, $5 gas, and the privilege of tipping your IRS agent.

Reagan put it best: "Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber, and as deadly as a hit man."

Granted, the Gipper also tripled the national debt, so let’s not put him on a pedestal.

They always get away with it through a clever sleight of hand:

They blame Russia, supply chains, the weather, unions, corporate greed—anything but the printing press that’s been brrring since August ‘71, accelerating rapidly since 2008.

They’ve normalized theft.

Wrapping it in red, white, and blue by slapping a name on it like, “The American Rescue Plan” on it—so you feel patriotic while getting robbed.

Inside the Sausage Factory

The "One Big Beautiful Bill" clocks in at over 1,500 pages and includes 4,000+ earmarks—Washington-speak for "legalized bribes to my donors."

Lawmakers got 48-72 hours to read it. Lobbyists have been polishing it for months.

It's the same ol’ hostage situation. Pass our bloated wishlist or get blamed for "shutting down the government." Same playbook every time. And somehow, America keeps falling for it.

The bill includes gems like:

• $256 million for the Kennedy Center—because apparently performing arts qualify as a “national emergency.”

• A $4 trillion debt‑ceiling increase baked right in—because pretending we have limits would ruin the show.

• An extra $150 billion for defense—pushing the Pentagon past the $1 trillion mark. Congress just can’t resist those fighter jets that still can’t reliably fly (looking at you, F-35).

And of course, tucked deep in the fine print:

Extensions, renewals, and sunset-delay magic tricks that make future spending look smaller—until it isn’t.

This wasn’t about compromise. It wasn’t about national priorities.

It was about stuffing as much cash as possible into as many pockets as possible before the train hits the next bridge.

Nothing ever changes.

Because this isn’t a Republican problem or a Democrat problem.

It's a system problem:

• Special Interest Capture: Elections cost money. Corporations and unions foot the bill, then extract favors later. Just a typical Tuesday in Washington.

• Perverse Incentives: Voters reward politicians who give them free stuff today and punish those who tell them the bill comes due tomorrow. Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.

• Government's Nature: Once programs and agencies exist, they metastasize like cancer. There's no natural force pushing for smaller government, only bigger.

The debt ceiling "debates" are theater.

The whole machine runs on incentives that punish honesty and reward short-term looting.

When they talk about “cuts,” they mean slowing the rate of growth.

When they say “deficit reduction,” they mean “we’ll only borrow $1.3 trillion instead of $1.8.”

And when they say “responsible spending,” they mean “we found a way to make it your problem later.”

What Deserves Your Energy

(Hint: Not Twitter Fights)

While everyone’s brawling on X about whether Trump or Biden spent more, here’s the real headline:

Debt math doesn’t care who you voted for.

When the dollar collapses, it won’t ask if your bumper sticker was red or blue.

So instead of feeding the outrage machine, do something useful:

• Reduce your exposure to dollar debasement.
  Don’t keep your life savings in a currency they’re actively trying to destroy.

• Own real assets.
  Stuff that can’t be printed into oblivion or canceled by bureaucrats. Think gold, Bitcoin, land, productive businesses, boring-but-indispensable cash-flow plays.

• Diversify your revenue.
  If you depend on one employer—or worse, one government—you’re already on thin ice.

• Build local and parallel systems.
  Find your people. Trade value. Grow skills. The more you can unplug from the federal circus, the better.

Because once the trust breaks, once the system slips…

It’s too late to download a backup plan.

The Bottom Line

When the world’s richest man calls your flagship spending plan a “disgusting abomination,” maybe it’s time to take a second look.

But Congress didn’t. They passed it.

The avalanche of fiscal reality is coming whether we're ready or not.

If we keep arguing over the circus in D.C. while ignoring the balance sheet, we're fighting over deck chairs while the ship goes down.

It’s time to build your lifeboat.

Here's what keeps us up at night:

Most investors are positioning for one crisis. Inflation or deflation. Market crash or currency collapse. Banking crisis or sovereign debt crisis.

But what happens when they all hit at once? (Spoiler: They will.)

The Big Beautiful Bill isn't happening in isolation. It's the latest domino in a chain reaction that includes:

• Central bank money printing that's made the 1970s look quaint

• Geopolitical tensions that are fracturing global trade

• Banking system stress that makes 2008 look like a warm-up act

• Currency wars that will leave some nations—and their citizens—devastated

Most portfolios are built for the last crisis, not the next seven.

That's why we've spent years developing The 7th Signal—a future-agnostic risk management system that doesn't try to predict which crisis hits first. Instead, it positions you to profit—regardless of what fresh hell comes next.

Whether we get hyperinflation or deflation, you're protected.

The Big Beautiful Bill just made this protection essential, not optional.

The 7th Signal is coming soon.

We’re putting the final touches on a complete system to help you:

• Hedge against inflation and deflation

• Build antifragile portfolios in a world of political fragility

• Position yourself for profit—no matter which future shows up

Because let’s be honest: no one knows exactly how this plays out.

All we know is the system is unstable, the incentives are broken, and the stakes are rising.

You need a plan that works whether we get a soft landing... or a full-blown fire sale on empire.

Stay tuned. ~West & Zack

That’s it for this week.

If you made it this far, congrats—you’re officially part of a rare breed: the minority who see through the smoke, ignore the tribal circus, and actually read past the headline.

No promises on what happens next week—after all, our politicians provide more than enough surprises for everyone. But rest assured, we'll keep watching the signals, decoding the static, and calling out the absurdity when we see it.

Until then, the goal remains the same:

Don’t panic.

Stay vigilant.

Keep your hedges tight, your mind open, and your passport within arm’s reach.

Because whether it’s collapse, reset, or the same slow bleed—it’s coming. And you’ve got no excuse not to be ready.

Sic semper debitoribus,
~ West & Zack

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