Hola Libertinus,

You know what killed the Soviet Union?

Reality.

(It kept interfering with the narrative.)

Soviet citizens watched nightly glowing broadcasts about abundant harvests.. then walked to empty grocery stores. They heard about the glorious classless society.. while watching party elites shop in special stores. They read Pravda's claims about industrial triumph.. while living with chronic shortages of the most basic goods.

Despite every effort at indoctrination, reality was stubborn.

Eventually, even the enforcers couldn't ignore the contradictions.

As KGB General Oleg Kalugin described his crisis of faith: “Who are my enemies? People who do not feel good, who are not happy, who are disgruntled, disenchanted, disillusioned?”

To their credit, the Soviets were at least honest about their dishonesty. State media was explicitly state-controlled. Comrades and commissars alike understood the charade.

We innovated.

Rather than a monolithic lie, our media creates the illusion of dissent through a bifurcated propaganda apparatus: ”Red team” vs. “Blue team.”

It’s their fault.

Meanwhile collective attention is systematically channeled towards official narratives and distractions (avoiding every story that actually matters.. like, you know, developments that will fundamentally determine America's geopolitical position and future generation’s prospects).

Our media theater functions as an elaborate misdirection.

Boy, it sure feels like we know where to point the finger!

And no disrespect to the dead or their families, but while the media happily mainlines recent tragedies to fuel the culture war’s worst neo-McCarthyism instincts, the architecture of global power is undergoing its most dramatic shift since Bretton Woods.

Seriously, why isn't the news talking about...

• China weaponizing its control over rare earth minerals, essential for our defense systems?

• BRICS+ nations, representing 45% of global population and 41.4% of global GDP, reportedly conducting half their intra-BRICS trade in RMB?

• Trump’s threatened 100% tariffs on BRICS countries, potentially accelerating exactly the de-dollarization he claims to oppose?

• Escalating tensions across the Taiwan Strait in ways that could shatter decades of regional stability?

You know why.

Let's get into it.

📡 S I G N A L S

The Politics of Misinformation Experts

The political leanings of misinformation experts are skewed to the left. This is unsurprising to anyone who has seen what these 'experts' have had to say over the past decade, but also presents a systemic problem: what are non-partisan sources of truth now? ~West

My Family Went Off Ultra-Processed Foods for a Month. The Results Surprised Us (WSJ) 

Plot twist: when you stop feeding your kid chemical-laden garbage disguised as food, they start eating actual meals. Revolutionary stuff! ~Zack

European Economic Decline Continued

One of the issues with nationalized pension systems is that they often require a strong base of workers who can be taxed in order to fund retirees. Retirees tend to have more time on their hands than people with jobs, and subsequently an increased ability to engage politically. What do they do with this political engagement? Vote to increase their payout of course. Depending on the specifics of pension management and demographics, this can lead to a system where workers are forced to pay increasingly large portions of their paychecks to fund non-workers. You don't have to be an economist to see this probably doesn't end well. ~West

Hitler’s Terrible Tariffs (The Atlantic)

A left-leaning publication writes an article about Hitler and tariffs. Lord. You can imagine where it goes from here. Yes, the guy who invaded half of Europe also had questionable trade policy. But why can’t Stalin or Mao get any love? Oh, right. ~Zack

The Nepal Coup

I visited Nepal back in the Spring of this year, and noticed things. Riot police everywhere. Dissatisfied youths. Crumbling infrastructure. Well, they just had a coup, and not the friendly kind. Videos of Nepalese elites being paraded around and beaten have surfaced online in the past few weeks and the government has fallen. This seems to have been more of a popular revolution than a revolution by the elites, which if you're a student of history, don't tend to work out well for the countries involved. I'd like to say I'm optimistic for the future of Nepal, but I have no reason to believe Nepal will be much better off than it was before. ~West

A single exercise session may slow cancer cell growth, new study shows (WaPo)

One hard session can mobilize natural killer cells, shift cytokines, and nudge the tumor micro-environment. It’s a good reminder that we pharmaceuticalize everything and forget first-line interventions that tune the terrain in real time. ~Zack

Trump's Take on Corporate Reporting

A common complaint I hear about the corporate system is that it creates short term incentives for companies, rather than focusing on long term performance. I think there is some merit to this idea, but let's think about why companies prioritize short term profits.

Companies are incentivized to prioritize short term gains because that seems to be what their investors care about. For example, I own a very small amount of a very large number of companies via stock market ETFs. I have never even heard of most companies I own shares of. Why do I own them? Because I want them to generate dividends and capital gains for me. How these companies do that for me doesn't matter to me – the only thing that matters to me is that they increase my net worth. That's why I own them.

Hypothetically, if I were actively investing in these companies rather than passively holding them in an ETF, I would sell companies that didn't perform well. That would deprive these companies of the capital I withdrew by selling my shares, and if a majority of other investors agreed with me, the company could suffer significant losses. In essence, companies (publicly traded ones at least), cannot perform in the long run if they don't perform in the short run because they may not exist in the long run if they don't perform in the short run.

Trump's proposal to lengthen the time period between corporate reportings may or may not enable companies to focus on the long run, but as an investor, this doesn't seem like it would be beneficial for me. ~West

Solzhenitsyn's Commencement Address at Harvard University

June 8th, 1978. Harvard University. A man who survived the Gulag walks to the podium to address America's elite. What does he tell them? That they're cowards. That their media is corrupt. That their obsession with legalistic thinking has made them spiritually bankrupt. And the Soviet system they claim to oppose.. they're becoming more like it every day.

"The press has become the greatest power within the Western countries, exceeding that of the legislature, the executive, and the judiciary. Yet one would like to ask: According to what law has it been elected and to whom is it responsible?"

Solzhenitsyn told a room of future gatekeepers that a press can be free on paper and still herd minds by speed, fashion, and a top-down editorial lens. The Harvard crowd didn't love this speech. Don’t miss it. ~Zack

Tax the Rich; Break the Country

Everyone seems obsessed with taxing the rich. Usually the starting point for such arguments is that they need to pay their "fair share". The data demonstrates conclusively that they don't pay their fair share, they pay far more than their fair share. This video by Reason goes beyond the moral argument to tax the rich and explores the practical side of implementing such policies. The reality is that taxing the rich is more likely to break the country than fix anything. ~West

Police make 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages

Thirty arrests a day. Every single day. That's how often British police are now arresting people for social media posts that cause someone "annoyance," "inconvenience," or "anxiety." And those are 2023 numbers. They’ve passed new laws since. The country that brought you 1984.. is bringing you 1984. I be gobsmacked, guv'na! ~Zack

That’s it for this week.

I have a dream (no disrespect to Dr. King) that American families might discuss reserve currency mechanics over dinner instead of choosing sides in the latest corporate boycott.

That citizens would understand supply chain vulnerabilities instead of being outraged at the latest late night hosts cancellation.

That we'd recognize we're living through the most significant geopolitical realignment since World War II instead of analyzing celebrity engagement rings and staged proposals.

Maybe that’s too much to ask in the age of manufactured consent.

You probably think you hate the media enough.

You don't.

Sic semper debitoribus,
~ West & Zack

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