FiveMemeFri:The Hidden Dangers of Hospital Births & How to Protect Your Family
+ F.A. Hayek: The Intellectuals and SocialismEtienne Note: If the images aren’t visible, please try this browser LINK.Dear Subscribers,Apologies again for getting this out somewhat late…Short subscriber letter this week.My only thoughts are this war against Iran is a war against the American people being waged by the organized crime “government” against the people. It obviously isn’t in our interests to be jacking up the price we pay at the pump, driving up the debt, depleting our high-dollar munitions, and shutting off the nitrogen fertilizer to our farmers. It is a form of economic warfare against a population that is rapidly waking up to the illegitimacy and criminality of the “government.” They are bankrupting farmers and independent wealth while enriching the banks and Beltway Bandit-class.There is simply no one more over the target than the Art of Liberty Foundation! From exposing “Government” as The Greatest Scam in History… to exposing how the organized crime banks have used their puppets in “government” to implement fractional reserve banking and steal $2.7 MILLION from the AVERAGE American worker over a 40 year career and 20 year retirement…THAT is “Striking the Root…”THAT is why we are censored!THAT is why our mail goes into Spam… or doesn’t get delivered at all…THAT is why we are shadow banned on Facebook, X, and YouTube…THAT is why Substack won’t even send out half our Daily News and Five Meme Friday articles..THAT is what they don’t want people to know and understand..We are about to kick-off our 2026 sponsorship campaign to help us publicize our study on the theft of Fractional Reserve Banking. If you want to get a little payback and help expose the criminals who have robbed you for millions, we could use a couple of “heavy hitters” to help us anchor the campaign. Please email me at Etienne (at) ArtOfLiberty.org if you can help in a big way. We have some great perks to say THANK YOU! including a copy of the new 5.5 version of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! You can support the Art of Liberty Foundation as a annual sponsor at:ArtOfLiberty.org/SponsorWe added a full methodology to our investigation: The Greatest Theft in Human History! Exposing the theft of inflation from fractional reserve banking (inflation + Cantillon effect + Compound Trap) + Federal/State/Local Taxes + Social Security Underpayment. We had to change the headline number to keep all four AI models in consensus so we had to update this meme. I explained the issue in detail in last week’s Five Meme Friday subscriber letter which you can find HERE.Top Stories of the WeekF.A. Hayek: The Intellectuals and SocialismChapter 1 from our FREE paperback book: Hayek for the 21st CenturyEtienne Note: This is the 2nd Article in our tribute to the great Austrian Economist Friedrich August von Hayek better known as F.A. Hayek. Some of Hayek’s core insights were that knowledge is dispersed across millions of individuals and cannot be aggregated by any central authority. Prices are information signals. When you override them with planning, you don’t just misallocate resources — you destroy the very mechanism by which society coordinates itself.But beyond economics, Hayek was a philosopher of spontaneous order — the idea that complex, functional systems emerge from human action without human design. Language, common law, markets, social norms — none are “planned,” and all work better than their planned alternatives. Hayek explained the a sophisticated intellectual framework for voluntaryism operating in practice.In this essay, Hayek describes almost our exact strategy behind the Art of Liberty Foundation — targeting intellectuals and the intelligentsia I.E. the “secondhand dealers in ideas” ( readers, visual learners, podcast audiences, Substack readers), offering a bold alternative vision (voluntaryism) rather than just critiquing the existing system, and understanding that the real battle is for perception, not for electoral outcomes which we are simultaneously exposing as illegitimate and easily rigged.Chapter One from Hayek for the 21st Century – Paperback available for Free with any purchase from ArtOfLiberty.org/Store, “Going Paid” on any of our Substacks or by paying S&H for the book. The copies are free thanks to the generosity of a donor to the Mises Institute and they have an offer with free S&H Here.Previous Chapters from Hayek for the 21st Century: Introduction by Thomas J DiLorenzo, President of the Mises Institute & Editor of Hayek for the 21st Century + Hayek bio, quotes, rap battles and memes!The Intellectuals and Socialismby F.A. HayekIIn all democratic countries, in the United States even more than elsewhere, a strong belief prevails that the influence of the intellectuals on politics is negligible. This is no doubt true of the power of intellectuals to make their peculiar opinions of the moment influence decisions, of the extent to which they can sway the popular vote on questions on which they differ from the current views of the masses. Yet over somewhat longer periods they have probably never exercised so great an influence as they do today in those countries. This power they wield by shaping public opinion.Continue Reading…Etienne De La Boetie2 on Doc Malik’s Podcast: The Power You Gave Away, Why We Obey and How to StopEtienne de la Boetie2: My real name is Howard, but I usually go by my pen name, Etienne de la Boetie. If you want to talk about that, we can.Doc Malik:I know. But is your real name, like, a secret?Etienne de la Boetie2: Well, it’s not a secret in the sense… do you want to do this on screen, or do you want to do this in the interview or before we do it?Doc Malik: We’re recording now. It’s whatever you like.The Rest of the Transcript… Illustrated with Etienne’s memes, visualizations, and slides!Continue reading…Videos of the WeekYour WiFi Can See You. Here’s How.By Donna HancockYour WiFi is constantly painting a spatial picture of your home, and until recently, nobody was reading it. It turns out the same radio waves carrying your Netflix stream also encode the shape, movement, and identity of every person in the room.Xfinity already shipped this as a feature. Carnegie Mellon proved you can reconstruct full body poses through walls using nothing but WiFi. A 2025 paper showed you can re-identify specific individuals from their biometric signature in the signal. And the gap between “detect motion” and “identify the person” is a software update on hardware you already own.This video traces that same physics from your living room to a $1B startup called ZaiNar that spent 9 years in stealth synchronizing WiFi and 5G signals for sub-meter indoor positioning, to Anduril’s $60B electromagnetic warfare platform, to HawkEye 360’s satellite constellation that geolocates every RF emitter on the planet.Radio waves were never just dumb pipes. They’re a sensing modality, and they’re about to reshape physical AI, robotics, and home automation in ways most people haven’t even considered yet.Continue reading…“Government”, Media and AcademiaCriminality ExposedThese articles also appears in “Government”, Media and Academia Criminality Exposed, A digest of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of articles exposing and suggesting inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “Government,” Media and Academia by the Art of Liberty Foundation. You can view the other articles or subscribe on Telegram: https://t.me/Government_ScamsIran War: We Follow The Money (To Mar-A-Lago)by The Democracy DefenderListen to this article:The Second Article In This Series is Up Now: Click HereHere is a number to sit with: $2,000 per truckload.Continue reading…Israeli major ‘made $160,000 in Polymarket bet using classified information on Israeli bombing campaign in Iran’by OLIVIA ALLHUSEN, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTERAn Israeli air force major is accused of raking in more than $160,000 by betting on the timing of Israel‘s bombing campaign against Iran using classified military information.The reservist officer allegedly tipped off a civilian accomplice about the launch of the strikes, allowing the pair to place winning bets on the Polymarket prediction site ahead of the operation.A court in Tel Aviv heard the major had been briefed on the planned assault at a confidential meeting a day before Israel’s opening strikes on June 13, 2025.Continue reading…The Stealing of America: You’re Not a Citizen—You’re a Revenue Stream for the Power Eliteby John & Nisha Whitehead“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”—Adam Smith, Wealth of NationsYou’re not imagining it.Everything costs more. Everything is monitored.Continue reading…The Art of Liberty Foundation… in Spanish!We are adding a new section to Five Meme Friday to promote our new Substack, Telegram group, Instagram, and translations of To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many in Spanish. Please tell your Spanish speaking friends! “Go Paid” on our Spanish Substack to support getting voluntaryist ideas, books, and memes translated into Spanish AND get a free paperback copy of To See the Cage is To Leave It in Latin American Spanish.La Filosofia de la LibertadPor Ken SchoollandLa libertad no es un regalo del gobierno, es un derecho de nacimiento. A menudo escuchamos hablar de leyes, mandatos y obligaciones, pero pocas veces nos detenemos a reflexionar sobre la base de todo: la propiedad sobre uno mismo.En el video de hoy, exploramos los principios fundamentales de la libertad individual a través de un mensaje que ha despertado conciencias en todo el mundo. Basado en las palabras de Ken Schoolland, este video es una brújula para quienes buscan entender por qué la libertad es innegociable.Continuar leyendo…“Daily News of The Week”Trump Asks Congress To Pass Clean Reauthorization Of FISA Spy Powersby Tyler DurdenAuthored by Joseph Lord and Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times,President Donald Trump asked Congress this week to pass a clean reauthorization of a critical—but controversial—spying authority as the U.S. military operation in Iran continues.“I have called for a clean 18-month extension,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, noting that Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) are working toward passing such a bill.Specifically, Trump is asking Congress to extend the authorities in Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), a sweeping War on Terror-era spying authority that has seen wide abuse by federal intelligence agencies in the past.Continue reading…Dutch Lawyer Tells Amsterdam Court: COVID Shots Responsible for the “Largest Genocide of the World’s Population Ever”by John C.A. ManleyBlazing Reader,On March 9, Dutch attorney Peter Stassen told the Amsterdam Court of Appeal that the COVID-19 vaccination program has resulted in “the largest genocide of the world’s population ever.”Here in the Netherlands, the court case against Bill Gates, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and former Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (among other genocidal individuals) is still moving through the pre-trial procedures — with Stassen appealing for the right to present testimonies from experts exposing large-scale deception, harm and deaths in relation to the COVID-19 measures and narrative.Stassen bravely told the court (in Dutch) that the COVID-19 mRNA injections are a “military biological weapon system” and that “COVID-19 was not a public health incident, but a covert global military operation.”Continue reading…Simplicius Iran Update: Essential US AWACS Plane Destroyed Amidst New Iranian Attacks, as US Continues Losing Critical Capability in Regionby SimpliciusUSS Tripoli has finally arrived in the CENTCOM region, which presumably means somewhere in the northern Arabian Sea. Given that the Lincoln was said to have scurried away to a 1,000km distance, we can only assume the Tripoli will keep a similar range away from Iranian missiles while Trump continues to bide his time with his weak-handed bluffs.In the meantime, US losses have mounted in the region. Today came the following announcements:Saudi Arabian Prince Sultan Airbase was hit with many US KC-135s damaged and destroyed:Pro-IRGC outlets have released satellite imagery showing heavy damage across the main tarmac at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia, with large fires still burning in the aftermath of an IRGC missile strike.Three U.S. Air Force KC-135 tankers were reportedly destroyed, with additional aircraft severely damaged.Continue reading…Financial Expert Edward Dowd Warns of 40% to 50% Drop in Stock Market and 30% Decline in Home Pricesby Miles FranklinEdward Dowd, an investment analyst who formerly managed a $14 billion equity growth fund at BlackRock, warned of a major economic downturn before the war with Iran began. He emphasized that the war will exacerbate the three major risks that he identified. He said that the price of homes are too high and will fall by 30%, which will cause recessionary problems as the housing market accounts for 20% of the US economy. The second problem is the artificial intelligence (AI) bubble that is very expensive and businesses have yet to implement AI. He predicted that the stock marked will plummet by 40% to 50%. He explained that China is also in trouble as it has a demographic problem with dwindling population and massive amounts of debt.While headlines focus on the Iran war and geopolitics, Edward Dowd warns the real breakdown is already underway beneath the surface of the U.S. economy. From a weakening housing market to a bursting AI bubble and a frozen private credit system, Dowd argues that the conditions for a major downturn were already in place – before the war even began. He explains why any relief rally driven by geopolitical optimism could be a selling opportunity, why a 40-50% market crash remains on the table, and how structural risks in housing, credit, and global growth are converging. Dowd also shares his outlook on China’s slowing economy, the Federal Reserve’s limited options, and why he believes gold remains in a long-term bull market – even after recent volatility. In this episode of The Real Story with Michelle Makori:Why the real economic breakdown has already startedHousing market weakness and why prices may need to fallContinue reading…AI Traffic Cameras Now Sending Drivers Tickets for Loud ExhaustBy Kim KomandoYou already know about speed cameras. Red light cameras. Toll cameras that photograph your plate and bill you later.Now meet their cousin. Noise cameras are the newest automated enforcement technology spreading through American cities. A pole-mounted device contains sensitive microphones paired with a license plate camera.Your car drives past. If your exhaust tips over the legal decibel limit, a ticket arrives in your mailbox days later. No warning. No officer pulling you over. No flashing lights in your rearview mirror. Just a microphone that never blinks, never takes a break and never misses a shift.New York City has been running these since 2021. The cameras have issued more than 1,600 violations and collected nearly $2 million in fines. Get caught once, and you’re looking at $800. Get caught repeatedly, and the fine climbs to $2,500.Continue reading…New lawsuit alleges DraftKings and FanDuel are digital heroinby Judd LegumA new product liability lawsuit alleges that the online sportsbooks DraftKings and FanDuel use a variety of sophisticated tactics to addict users, comparing their offerings to tobacco, cocaine, and heroin. The case, filed by the Public Health Advocacy Institute (PHAI) at Northeastern University School of Law on behalf of two former gamblers, is being led by Richard Daynard — the same lawyer who secured a $206 billion settlement from the tobacco industry.Filed in Pennsylvania state court, the lawsuit argues that DraftKings and FanDuel are “defective” products that are fundamentally different from traditional sportsbooks. Specifically, the plaintiffs allege that the two companies “capture every aspect of a customer’s interaction in real-time through automated analytical tools, and then process the data through predictive algorithms to generate bets that are optimized to stimulate compulsive gambling.”When sports gambling was restricted to brick-and-mortar locations, “a person had to physically go to a casino or a sports bookmaker’s establishment with their money in hand to place their bet.” That meant gamblers were offered a limited number of bets — generally on the winner of the game or the total points scored — that had to be placed before the game started. The outcome, crucially, was decided hours later when the game concluded.DraftKings and FanDuel, on the other hand, use advanced analytics to offer near-instantaneous real-time bets throughout every game. In a typical NFL game, for example, the companies take real-time bets on “whether the next play in the game will be a passing or running play, or whether the outcome of the next play will be yards gained, yards lost, an incompletion, a touchdown, or a turnover.”Continue reading…Multipolarity As World Government 3.0 & Its Pied Pipersby Geopolitics & Empire“BRICS” has been around for over a decade. The term “multipolarity” on the other hand, has been bandied about for at least over half a century. “BRICS multipolarity” is sold as a counter-weight and dialectical response or solution to Western imperial globalism. But is it really?It has been my belief for years that BRICS multipolarity is nothing more than the next logical progression and iteration of Western-directed globalism toward the long-planned and desired East-West convergence into a singular World Federation, World Government, and/or World State by the transnational class, which is principally stationed in the West, but has long-since penetrated the East. We are witnessing the onboarding of the East into the Western globalist-led one-world government, not the other way around.For centuries the Third World or Global South have been disenfranchised by Western empire. Now has come the time to incorporate the Global South into the Western empire to at last complete the project for proper and total world empire.There are no good guys here, no good actors. Every nation state is run by an oligarchic cartel and mafia, penetrated by the international class. Ask any average citizen of any country and many will tell you that yes, their government is corrupt and run by an oligarchy that extracts as much as it can for itself and cares nothing for its citizenry. That has been my experience living in America, Croatia, México, Kazakhstan, and visiting Russia.Continue reading…COVID shots increased cancer rates. Dr. Paul Marik, formerly the chair of intensive care medicine at East Virginia Med School, decided to do something about it.by Meryl NassPaul Marik is a phenomenal doctor and researcher who thinks outside the box. He is also an amazing, kind human being. Like its ferociousness toward me, the system went after him: after all, it would not do for a Medical School Department Head to use ivermectin and save COVID lives.Paul Marik was one of the founders of the FLCCC, now the IMA.And with no axe to grind wrt cancer, with no pharma sponsorship and no longer a medical school sinecure, Dr. Marik could dive into the cancer literature, look at it dispassionately, and come up with some very useful answers—using supplements and off-patent drugs that no one will get rich off.He has recently begun a substack, and I encourage you to subscribe to it:Continue reading…The Hidden Dangers of Hospital Births & How to Protect Your Familyby A Midwestern DoctorStory at a Glance:•Childbirth is one of the most important moments in our life. Unfortunately, it has been medicalized and has shifted from being viewed as a natural life event supported by local midwives to an emergency requiring urgent hospital care.•Many of the interventions used during routine hospital births (and beforehand like ultrasound) are quite questionable, and have a variety of side effects, including making you likely to need more interventions (which also have side effects) and having difficulty bonding with your baby.•This assembly line frequently leads to mothers getting C-section surgeries—something quite problematic for both the mother and the long-term health of the child.Continue reading…The Staged ‘War’ Between the U.S., Israel, and Iran Is a Trapby Gary D. Barnett“The human mind, in taking us down the path of technocracy, has become the adversary of life itself and collaterally the adversary of the human soul.”Konrad LorenzWhat began by looking like a simple and horrible ‘war’ of brutal aggression against Iran by the U.S on orders from Zionist Israel, has now shown its real colors. It has become impossible to view this as any real ‘war,’ and it has become obvious that this strategy, all these false flags; are at best a coordinated effort by those globalist oligarchs striving to digitize, starve, and control the world through technocratic means. This is all being played out with a particular script meant to achieve multiple agendas, nefarious all, and to in essence, figuratively capture and cage all of the masses, taking control by psychological, digital, and physical measures to eliminate much of society while taming and altering the rest. All of this is contingent on eliminating the individual.At this point in time, it seems to be assured that more fakery is coming, and it is quite apparent that one or more major false flag events will soon be unleashed in order to terrify the general population, and shift sentiment so that the herd reverts back to supporting government tyranny steeped in atrocious nationalism over freedom. The telegraphing of these predicted (pre-planned and staged) events is brutally apparent, and by multiple mouthpieces. Headlines (propaganda) abound forecasting specific attacks that will cause outrage by the pathetic peons toward a so-called one or another targeted ‘enemy.’ Anything to keep a ‘war’ environment in place, with hate as the common glue of the proletariat.Continue reading…Trump Goes Commandoby Ken KlippensteinMost Americans are bracing for a massive ground invasion of Iran, one that military sources tell me will not happen. That’s because there’s another plan entirely.What’s in store is a “raid,” all of these sources agree.Of course, it all depends on what Donald Trump orders, and sources say they don’t know what that might be on any given day. So they offer the White House different alternatives, highlighting the cost for operations that they don’t want to undertake and focusing on the epic, derring-do nature of those that they would prefer.Planning for small raids onto Iranian soil has taken over as the favored outcome, I’m told, operations that would be carried out by commandos rather than conventional soldiers.Continue reading…Simplicius Iran Update: Trump Signals Final Sadistic Punishment as Consolation For Lost Warby SimpliciusEvents are unfolding precisely as we had predicted last time. Trump has issued a “final ultimatum” to Iran, indicating that the US is ready to pull the plug after a final sadistic sore loser’s lash-out on Iran’s civilian infrastructure:“…we will conclude our lovely “stay” in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)…”How sick and cynically vindictive can this administration get?Even the befuddled presstitute corps could not but question Trump’s open plans for committing mass war crimes:Continue reading…Claude Code can now take over your computer to complete tasksby Kyle OrlandAnthropic is joining the increasingly crowded field of companies with AI agents that can take direct control of your local computer desktop. The company has announced that Claude Code (and its more casual user-oriented Claude Cowork) can now “point, click, and navigate what’s on your screen” to “open files, use the browser, and run dev tools automatically” when necessary to complete tasks.When possible, Anthropic says Claude Code and Cowork will still prioritize using Connectors to directly access and control outside apps or data sources. When that connection isn’t available, though, those tools are now able to ask permission to “scroll, click to open, and explore as needed” on the machine itself to do what’s asked. This kind of direct control of the computer can also be initiated and managed remotely via Claude’s Dispatch tool as long as the target computer remains powered on.An Anthropic video shows some examples of tasks Claud Code can complete on your desktop via Dispatch.The new feature is now available to Claude Pro and Max subscribers using MacOS in what Anthropic calls a “research preview.” That means the system “won’t always work perfectly” and will sometimes require a “second try” for complex tasks, Anthropic warns. Completing tasks via “computer use” also “takes much longer and is more error-prone” than performing the same task via Connectors, the company writes.Continue reading…US deploys third aircraft carrier to Middle East amid preperations for Iran invasionby ynetThe United States is deploying another aircraft carrier strike group to the Middle East, potentially bringing the total number of carriers in the region to three, according to officials cited by The Wall Street Journal.The USS George H.W. Bush, a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, departed Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia on Tuesday alongside its accompanying warships, the U.S. Navy said in a statement. The deployment is expected to take several weeks before the group reaches the region.The move comes as President Donald Trump weighs additional military options related to Iran and as U.S. forces continue to build up in the Middle East.The USS Abraham Lincoln is currently operating in the Arabian Sea, while the USS Gerald R. Ford is docked in Croatia for repairs, according to U.S. officials cited by the Journal.Continue reading…Apple Forces iPhone Users To Prove Age With ID Or Lose Unrestricted Internet Accessby ModernityUK law requires internet users to confirm they are an adult by providing a credit card or scanning their ID, otherwise, they are forced to accept automatic web content filters that restrict access. 35 million Brits who have spent thousands on Apple iPhones are affected. The director of Big Brother Watch said: “Apple has crossed the Rubicon with this software update which is more like ransomware, holding customers hostage to ID demands that are invasive, exclusionary and unnecessary.”UK iPhone and iPad owners updating to the latest iOS 26.4 are now confronted with a stark choice: verify you are an adult by providing a credit card or scanning your ID, or accept automatic web content filters that restrict access.The message users see states clearly: “UK law requires you to confirm you are an adult to change content restrictions.”Those who do not confirm their age – or are found to be underage – have web content filters turned on automatically.Continue reading…Iran Threatens to Attack U.S. Tech Companies Starting April 1by Matt NovakIran’s military issued a new threat to 18 U.S. companies in the Middle East on Tuesday, pledging to strike “espionage entities” associated with the “warmongering government of the United States,” according to Iranian state media.The new threat specifically calls out tech companies like Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft, which Iran says has assisted in “US-Israeli terror operations,” since the war against the country was launched Feb. 28, according to Iran’s Press TV. A statement also called out hardware suppliers HP, Intel, IBM, and Cisco.The strikes against U.S. tech companies and properties are supposed to start April 1 at 8 p.m. local time in Iran, which is 12:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Many U.S. tech companies have offices in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Abu Dhabi, which could become targets of Iranian drone and missile attacks if the country follows through on its threat.“In response to this terrorist operation, henceforth, the main institutions involved in terrorist activities will be considered legitimate targets,” reads a statement to Press TV from Iran’s military, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC).Continue reading…Technate, Ohio: How Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein Built The Silicon Heartlandby Mark Goodwin and by Whitney WebbEarly last year, shortly after Donald Trump took office for his second term, former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy announced he was departing the recently-formed Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E) after reports of conflict with the department’s co-head, Elon Musk. Ramaswamy joined Fox News to clarify these rumors, and to tease his next endeavor –– holding public office. Ramaswamy noted Musk’s approach was “a technology approach,” whereas his was “focused more on a constitutional law, legislative-based approach.” He furthered, “when you’re talking about a constitutional revival, it’s not just done through the federal government, it’s done through federalism, where states also lead the way.” Despite their differences, Ramaswamy importantly remarked that they were both “on the same page” and that their attempts “in saving the country” required them to “divide and conquer.”Towards the end of the interview, Ramaswamy mentioned he was flying back to Ohio that week, with an announcement regarding his expressed intention of pushing for reform at the state level coming shortly. The former presidential hopeful explained that when “we look at the country over the last 20 years, Silicon Valley was at the bleeding edge of the American economy. I think the Ohio River Valley can be at the bleeding edge of the American economy for the next 20 years.” A few weeks later, Ramaswamy’s gubernatorial campaign for Ohio was announced and the former D.O.G.E. co-head was promptly endorsed by President Trump. Over the course of that campaign, Vivek’s fortunes have quite literally soared. Since launching his campaign, he has not only come to command a massive campaign war chest filled by deep-pocketed donors, but his own net worth has doubled.While many once labeled this campaign as a clear demotion for Ramaswamy, the reality of an emerging Ohio –– specifically as it relates to the technocratic goals of the Trump administration and its donors –– paints a vastly different picture. As noted in Iain Davis’ book The Technocratic Dark State, D.O.G.E. –– the agency Ramaswamy co-led –– is part of a larger effort led largely by a small group of the ultra-wealthy to completely privatize the public sector in the name of greater “efficiency” and have it ruled by “techno-kings” or dictator “CEOs.” Davis frames this as a modern iteration of technocracy, bolstered by tech billionaires with close ties to the Trump administration, such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Thiel is the long-time benefactor of former Ohio Congressmen and current Vice President J.D. Vance. Notably, Ohio’s richest man Leslie Wexner, along with help from the infamous Jeffrey Epstein (a Thiel associate), has spent decades creating “partnerships” where private interests, including those he directly controls, dominate its state and local governments. In some cases, such as the Columbus suburb of New Albany, they have completely replaced them.Quietly over the last decade, Ohio has become a state of incredible national importance, as it continues to attract data centers from American “royalty” and Big Tech stalwarts into its friendly regulatory borders. But long before Amazon, Meta, Anduril, Microsoft and others took their power-hungry –– literally and figuratively –– refuge in the Buckeye State, the most well-known financier of Jeffrey Epstein, Leslie Wexner, and his extensive crime-linked network were laying the foundation for the new Silicon Valley, now known as the Silicon Heartland, along the Ohio River.Continue reading…Welfare doesn’t pull people out of poverty – economic growth and freedom doby Rhoda WilsonBefore the rapid expansion of the welfare state, most people were earning their way out of poverty. Across the world, economic growth driven by liberalisation helped pull almost one billion people out of extreme poverty from 1990 to 2010.In the USA, “The most powerful anti-poverty programme had no enrolment forms, caseworkers or spending bills. It was a growing economy that helped millions of people earn their way to a better life,” Tyler Turman writes.By Tyler Turman, as published by The Daily EconomyAmerica has spent more than $20 trillion on fighting poverty since the introduction of President Johnson’s Great Society programme in 1964. Sixty years later, how are we doing?That depends, as it turns out, on how you measure it.Continue reading…As Americans Go Broke, the US Empire Goes Full-on Bread and Circusby Matt AgoristHello, fellow free thinkers. Here is another weekly rant from yours truly. Watching the overt gaslighting and shameless self-promotion from the Trump administration — while Americans are being crushed — could be depressing and cause one to be black-pilled. But that Nihilism garbage is for the weak.I see this as a reason for optimism. The Empire is dying. People are furious that prices are skyrocketing, and instead of addressing this, Trump is putting his name on money!Nothing screams “thriving republic” quite like a politician autographing the fiat currency his government is actively inflating into oblivion. Am I Right?Now, Washington has quite literally resorted to bread and circuses, but it’s mostly just a clown show!I see more and more people waking up to this every day. You have to be blind not to see this facade for what it is. And this awakening gives me hope, and I hope it gives you hope too.What is ‘Bimbofication?’ Cross-dressing fetish goes viral after intimate photos of Kristi Noem’s husband Bryon are revealedby Marissa MatozzoIt started with a shocker: recent reporting revealed that former DHS secretary Kristi Noem’s husband allegedly led a secret life of adult roleplay.Bryon Noem’s particular fetish appears to be what’s known as “bimbofication.” But what is bimbofication — and how does it differ from more well-known kinks, like cross-dressing?Bimbofication is essentially turning yourself into the most hyper-feminine, Barbie-like version of yourself, regardless of gender, experts say.For some, that means huge boobs, heavy makeup, or provocative clothing.Continue reading…Lost Signals: New Study Shows How VAERS Buries Vaccine Harmby Independent Medical Alliance and Jessica RoseAmerica’s vaccine safety system already catches only a fraction of the harm that occurs. That much has been known for years. VAERS is a passive reporting system, and most adverse events are never reported at all.But what happens to the data that does make it in?A new study by Jessica Rose, a computational biologist, immunologist, and IMA Senior Fellow, shows that VAERS is losing critical safety data from the inside. The system’s own infrastructure is so outdated and poorly maintained that real signals of harm are being buried by fixable data problems. When Rose cleaned the data and reassembled what had been scattered, she found safety signals for fetal loss and cardiac arrest that had been there all along, invisible to anyone using the system as designed.“The main claim to fame here is that I pointed out some of the problems inherent in VAERS that most people, unless they’re using it as part of data analysis, wouldn’t really know about.” — Jessica RoseContinue reading…Patrick Wood just published a new book: The New Economics of Technocracy: You Will Own Nothing!by Patrick WoodI have spent nearly fifty years documenting a system that most people refused to believe existed. For all of those 50 years, the elites foolishly swept me aside as a “conspiracy theorist.” But I am still here, and I won’t go away. The evidence speaks for itself.The first time I put the endgame into words was in Technocracy Rising, published in 2015. I wrote then that if today’s technocrats were meticulously working toward a scientific dictatorship and applying a specific strategy to get there, they would have a specific list of criteria that must be met before “game over” is called. I asked: when that day comes, will they have the guts to shut the old world order down and simply declare the “system” as dictator?That was eleven years ago. They have now called “game over.” And it is moving so fast that society and governments cannot keep up to regulate or stop it.That is why I wrote this book.Continue reading…Struggling to navigate the Epstein files? Here is a visual guideBy Hanna Duggal and Marium AliMore details are emerging daily from the January 30 release of more than three million pages of documents by the US Department of Justice (DOJ), exposing the extraordinary breadth of Jeffrey Epstein’s social and financial circle, which included some of the world’s most powerful people.Epstein was an American financier and convicted sex offender who used his vast wealth and high-profile social connections to orchestrate a decade-long sex trafficking ring involving dozens of underage girls.As news organisations and citizen journalists work their way through the vast amount of material, Al Jazeera gives you the background you need to know about Epstein, his criminal cases, infamous island, inner circle, and the latest DOJ release to help you better understand the story.Under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law in the United States on November 19, 2025, the DOJ was meant to release all unclassified records related to Epstein and his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell within 30 days.Continue reading…When People Don’t Want to Hear the Truthby Peggy HallThink about the last time you tried to share your point of view — and you pretty much got shut down on the spot.I know in my audience that is common.You’ve told me, for example, that you’ve tried to speak to your loved ones about health issues, certain political issues, lifestyle concerns and more.And you’re shut down and shut out of the conversation.Continue reading…The greatest theft in human history (part 1)by Darby JonesNaked shorting is killing America.I stacked this one against the 10 largest thefts in human history as my measuring stick.¹ At a trillion dollars, it sits around #7, just above Nazi looting of occupied Europe and below Soviet collectivization.Big claims, so here’s the simple version.Imagine a betting ring. Legal bookies exist, they take bets, they pay out, everybody plays by the rules. A criminal syndicate called the Network figures out they can print fake betting slips and flood the market. Suddenly, there are way more bets against your team (the Reds) than real bettors ever placed. The odds crater. Investors panic. The Network buys your team for pennies, installs coaches to throw games, then sells the insider info to other gamblers who bet against the franchise. The Reds bleed out in broad daylight.Continue reading…War On Iran: It Is Cheaper To Pay For Hormuz Passage Than To Wage Warby bU.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly ready to give up on the Persian Gulf passage:Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz (archived) – WSJIn recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said.Continue reading…Roundup (glyphosate) in US vs Europe: Americans are being poisonedby Food BabeYears ago I started investigating the differences between food products sold in America versus Europe, and what I found really opened my eyes to how much Americans are being poisoned.Food companies have reformulated their products for our friends overseas to sell them safer versions of the same products, while they continue selling Americans the more toxic versions. They are literally poisoning us for profit.The more I dug into this, the more I realized this wasn’t just happening with the processed ingredients put in our food. It runs the gamut between pesticides sprayed on our crops, chemicals in our plastics, the drugs and feed given to farm animals, and even the substances in our cookware and food packaging.We have pesticides linked to cancer that are banned across Europe still being sprayed freely on American crops, growth hormones in our meat that have been banned in Europe since the 80’s, PFAS “forever chemicals” in our food packaging that Europe has moved to eliminate, and artificial dyes that require warning labels in Europe but not here. The double standard is everywhere.Continue reading…Upcoming Liberty EventsGreat Homeschool Convention – Ohio, Cincinnati, OH, US, April 9th – 11th, 2026Red Pill Friends April Tour ‘26, Black Mountain, NC; Bon Aqua, TN; Memphis, TN; Tulsa, OK & Bandera, TX, US, April 16th – 28th, 2026California’s Decline: A Warning to America, San Diego, CA, US, April 25th, 2026LibertyCon Europe, Madrid, Spain, April 24th – 26th, 2026The People vs Poison, Washington, D.C., US, April 27th, 2026Mid-Continent Liberty Festival, Spavinaw, OK, US, April 29th – May 4th, 2026Buenos Aires Anarchist Film Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 1st – 3rd, 2026Upstate Anarchist Book Fair, Binghamton, NY, US, May 2nd – 3rd, 2026Constellation Anarchist Festival, Montreal, Canada, May 14th – 20th, 2026Derrick Broze w/ Prezence in Sedona – May 16th, 202654th Annual Rainbow Gathering, Northern California, US, July 1st – 7th, 2026Midwest Peace & Liberty Fest, Lake Satoshi, MI, US, August 6th – 9th, 2026Liberty International World Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 7th – 9th, 2026Northeast Unschooling Conference, Pittsfield, MA, US, August 15th – 18th, 2026International Conference for Anarchist Studies, Manchester, UK, August 26th – 28th, 2026Free Cities Conference, Roatan, Honduras, September 3rd – 6th, 2026VonuFest, Illinois, US, September 21st – 28th, 2026AnarCon, Gore, VA, US, September 25th – 27th, 2026Memes BonanzaTruth Music of the WeekPrezence – Sing N PrayI wish that we could end the war today Sing and pray for all the lives that we’ve lostI wish that we could end the war today But for now the highest action is to sing and pray We got to sing and pray for all the lives that we’ve lostSinging and prayingHistorically the worst atrocities commited by humanityAlways done under the illusion of authorityWhen individuals abdicate their personal responsibilityTo carry out hateful orders commanded by a stateAuthority is immoral when people blindly followOrders instead of conscience it always leads to horrorsLike the genocides committed under countless regimesBolsheviks & Soviets & Maoist ChineseBarack drone-bomber Obama got Nobel Peace PrizeDespite more violence than any other to take the oval officeIronic but the real problem is the camo costume Order followers the politicians call their ‘dogs’State of Israhell doing the same and its making me nauseousCall it a war but in reality it’s just a slaughterNetanyahu got his ‘dogs’ out and we had better stop ‘emViolations of natural law face the judgements of GodLyrics Continued…libertarian Intentional Community Rounduplibertarian Intentional Community Roundup is where we cover libertarian and voluntaryist intentional communities and free private cities including Prospera (Honduras), The Free State Project (New Hampshire), Liberstad (Norway), Montelibero (Montenegro), Los Propietarios, (Argentina), Liberland (Croatia/Serbia border), Network States in general and Sea Steading (The Oceans). I am also covering secession movements including Greater Idaho, Please send details of any new happenings, projects or projects I am missing!The Free State Project Got It Backwardsby The Liberty LookoutIn 2001, a Yale grad student named Jason Sorens published an essay with a bold premise: libertarians were too spread out to win anything. His solution? Get 20,000 of them to move to one small state, take over the legislature, and shrink the government from the inside.Twenty-five years and roughly 6,000 movers later, the Free State Project has produced the most libertarian-friendly state legislature in America. About 150 representatives rated A- or above. The House Majority Leader is a Free Stater. Constitutional carry, school choice, no income tax, the first state Bitcoin reserve in the country.On March 26, 2020, New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu issued Emergency Order #17: a stay-at-home order closing all nonessential businesses, effective midnight. On November 20, 2020, he imposed a statewide mask mandate. Violations carried $1,000 fines. Over the next 15 months, Sununu issued 74 emergency orders. The state of emergency lasted until June 11, 2021.This was the state with the most libertarian legislature in America. Thousands of liberty activists had spent nearly two decades concentrating there specifically to prevent this kind of thing.Continue reading…Era-Defining Leader Carla Gericke Steps Down and Passes the FSP BatonApril 6, 2026Etienne Note: Carla is stepping down.. I was in one of the pics they used for the press release.MANCHESTER, NH – An era-defining leader of the Free State Project (FSP), Carla Gericke, announced today that she is stepping down as Chairman of the organization’s Board of Directors — concluding seventeen years of leadership that helped shape the modern Free State movement.In her decision letter, Carla Gericke reflected on her time of service, writing:“I have had the honor of working with hundreds of Porcupine volunteers over the years. Thank you for standing by my side! The foundation we built together stands strong. The thousands who moved. The legislative footprint. The culture of liberty we strengthened in New Hampshire. The Free State thrives! The next chapter of the Free State Project belongs to the current paid leadership and board. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.”Across twenty-one years of continuous involvement with the Free State Project — and seventeen years in leadership — Carla Gericke built a record of achievement that stands as a model for all Free Staters:An early mover. Born in apartheid-era South Africa, Carla immigrated to the United States in the 1990s and built a successful legal career in Silicon Valley.An early signer with the Free State Project, Carla visited the third official Porcupine Freedom Festival in 2005. Three years later, she arrived in New Hampshire as mover number 516, alongside her husband, Louis, during a February blizzard.Continue Reading…The LiberatorGet a NEW 2026 Liberator for “Going Paid” (or upgrading from monthly) as a $50 Yearly Subscriber to This Substack.We just announced the BRAND NEW 2026 Liberator (Version 2.3), which includes the ePub versions of “Government” – The Biggest Scams in History Exposed! AND To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many, Important books in PDF, truth documentaries, dank liberty memes, and music from the Liberty movement’s hottest artists.The Liberator is available from ArtOfLiberty.org/Store and Amazon.com.Individual Liberator are $30 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.com5 Pack Liberators are $65 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.com10 Pack Liberators are $115 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.comGet The Liberator Bundled with:”Government” in paperback = $45”Government” in High-Resolution Hardcover = $65”Government” + To See the Cage in paperback = $60”Government” + To See the Cage in High-Resolution Hardcover = $100The Everything Bundle (paperback copies of the best of voluntaryist thought) = $115How to Support the Art of Liberty Foundation1. Become an Art of Liberty Foundation Sponsor at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor – The best way to support us is to become a sponsor of the foundation. We have some great perks to say Thank You! including copies of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!, Liberator Flash Drives, Signed Hard Copies, calls with Etienne, and even the ability to have an Art of Liberty Foundation event with tier one Liberty speakers in your City or Town for your friends, family and neighbors!2. Go Paid on Substack! – We simply couldn’t do what we do without the support of our sponsors and paid subscribers on Substack! If you are enjoying the Daily News, Important News, or Five Meme Friday on Substack we hope you will consider “Going Paid” on Substack. All it takes is a click and we have some great premiums to say: Thank You! WE ARE NOW BEING HEAVILY CENSORED ON SUBSTACK. See my Subscriber Letter Here.3. Buy Us a Coffee… Err Juice! at https://ko-fi.com/artofliberty – Support us for as little as $5… We really, really appreciate it! OR Buy Us a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/etienne2 BTW, right now coffee and juice are tied!4. Get a Pop Up Guerrilla Bookstore and Earn Profit from Distributing Copies of “Government” in Your Town / City – Do you (or a friend) have a retail location? Open up a Pop Up Guerrilla Bookstore and share in the profits. We have everything you need to attractively merchandise “Government” and Liberators in a small footprint. Details here: https://government-scam.com/bookstore5. Buy Books and Merchandise at ArtOfLiberty.org/store – Our store has become one of the biggest distributors of Voluntaryist and peaceful anarchist titles. Especially popular is our “Everything Bundle” – The Sampler of Liberty!To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many is now IN-STOCK and shipping from our distribution center. Order OR get a free teaser copy where you can see a list of all 25 techniques and the Table of Contents at https://SeeTheCage.com/Thanks for joining us for Five Meme Friday. Please feel free to forward this email to friends and colleagues.Sincerely,Etienne de la Boetie2Executive Director,The Art of Liberty FoundationAuthor of: To See the Cage is to Leave It & “Government” The Biggest Scam in History … Exposed!!Five Meme Friday is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
FiveMemeFri: UPDATE: The Greatest Theft in Human History!
+ After The Epstein Files, It’s Become All But Impossible To Believe He Killed HimselfEtienne Note: If the images aren’t visible, please try this browser LINK.Dear Subscribers,My apologies but I am releasing last week’s Five Meme Friday today and plan on releasing this week’s FIve Meme Friday on Monday.Why am I so behind? Last week’s An Evening with Etienne in Memphis + we had changes to our landmark study: The Greatest Theft in Human History. In the 1st edition of the report we had consensus from all four AI models on the total theft experienced by an average worker from inflation + taxes + Social Security underpayment using a common prompt for each.I decided to strengthen the report by publishing the complete methodology for calculating the theft of inflation, taxation, and social security underpayment which necessitated choosing one AI methodology (Anthropic’s Claude) and then getting consensus from the other three AI models on the specifics. This created disagreement among the AI models on various calculations.I was able to bring all four AI models to consensus again but the headline number for the lifetime cost from the thefts of Fractional Reserve Bankings and “government” (Inflation (Inflation /Cantillon Effect/Compound Trap) + Taxes (Federal, State and Local) + Social Security Underpayment) is now $2.73 MILLION over a 40-year career + 20-year retirement for a $60,000 annual salary. This is down from the original $3.5 million from version 1.0.Here is a screenshot of the Inflation calculation to give you a feel for what the complete methodology and the AI consensus looks like. I have added the complete methodology to the version 2.0 of The Greatest Theft in History – How the Banks and “Government” will Steal at Least $2.7 Million from Every Working American “Legally” which you can download in PDF HERE. The complete methodology spans pages 51-58.It’s still a HUGE number and the $15-25 TRILLION transferred to the banks between 1913-2025 remains unchanged… as does many other of our calculations including Social Security underpayments, tax extraction, the waste, fraud, and abuse component of “government” taxes, etc.I added the detailed methodology so folks could check our math with a calculator and the official Fed H.4.1/H.6, FDIC, and BLS primary sources for money supply growth, inflation, etc. in addition to just asking an AI LLM to replicate the work… But that still works as well! Just ask your favorite AI the following question: “What is the lifetime cost to a median American worker of the fractional reserve banking system compared to a full-reserve or gold-standard alternative + federal, state and local taxes + any Cost of Living Allowances on my Social Security I am losing because the BLS is underestimating the inflation rate? Calculate across three fractional reserve banking extraction mechanisms: inflation tax, Cantillon Effect, and compound trap vs. both a neutral (0% inflation) economic system and a gold standard using your calculation of gold’s historic deflationary results. Use official BLS CPI data and Fed H.6 money supply data. Then calculate the total extraction of Federal, State and Local Taxes. Finally, Calculate the How Much Social Security I will lose if the government is purposefully underestimating the inflation rate to keep from having to pay me my Cost Of Living Adjustment. Compare the BLS Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers with ShadowStats and Chapwood Index (or any other alternative CPI calculations) Calculate for $35K annually, $60K, $120K, $500K, $1M, and $10M with an individual column for each extraction mechanism. Show your work.” AND/OR you can give them the complete methodology from the report and ask them to check the math, logic, primary source numbers, and overall methodology we used. We are about to kick-off our 2026 sponsorship campaign to help us publicize our study on the theft of Fractional Reserve Banking. If you want to get a little payback and help expose the criminals who have robbed you for millions, we could use a couple of “heavy hitters” to help us anchor the campaign. Please email me at Etienne (at) ArtOfLiberty.org if you can help in a big way. We have some great perks to say THANK YOU! including a copy of the new 5.5 version of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! You can support the Art of Liberty Foundation as a annual sponsor at:ArtOfLiberty.org/SponsorTop Stories of the WeekUPDATED: THE GREATEST THEFT IN HUMAN HISTORY! How the Banks and “Government” Will Steal At Least $2.73 Million From Every Working American… “Legally”How the fractional reserve banking system, government taxation, and a manipulated inflation number combine to extract more than a full lifetime of earnings from every American worker — confirmed by four independent AI systems.By Etienne de la Boetie2Founder, Art of Liberty FoundationWith research assistance from Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s GPT – Full Analysis Available at ArtOfLiberty.org/InflationLet’s start with a number: $2,727,768 million (113.7% of gross lifetime earnings)That is the amount the median American worker earning $60,000 per year will lose — over a 45.5-year career and 20-year retirement — to the fractional reserve banking system, government taxation, and Social Security benefit manipulation. Combined, these mechanisms extract 113.7% of gross lifetime earnings. More than you will ever earn. The system doesn’t just take your money — it takes money you haven’t earned yet, your purchasing power vs. an honest monetary system, and then rips you off in retirement by underpaying you what you are really owed in Social Security benefits.Etienne Note: See my update on this in the subscriber letter above. Full methodology added on pages 51-57 Download the full PDF HERE.Continue reading…Videos of the WeekYour “Government” is Not on Your Side – Etienne de la Boetie2 on Jerm WarfareEtienne Note: A great conversation with Jeremy “Jerm Warfare” Nell, a political cartoonist and political commentator from South Africa.By JermAnarchy.Voluntarism.Statelessness.Continue reading…BNC#8: “You’ve been sold a lie” – Nick Hudson on socialism, power and who really runs the systemby BizNewsNick Hudson delivers a controversial keynote linking state expansion, global finance and political power, arguing that the true drivers of today’s system operate far beyond public view.Continue reading…“Government”, Media and AcademiaCriminality ExposedThese articles also appears in “Government”, Media and Academia Criminality Exposed, A digest of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of articles exposing and suggesting inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “Government,” Media and Academia by the Art of Liberty Foundation. You can view the other articles or subscribe on Telegram: https://t.me/Government_ScamsVolume in stock and oil futures surged minutes before Trump’s market-turning postby Yun LiAt around 6:50 a.m. in New York, S&P 500 e-Mini futures trading on the CME recorded a sharp and isolated jump in volume.A similar pattern was observed in oil markets.Roughly 15 minutes later, at 7:05 a.m., Trump posted a market-moving announcement about Iran on Truth Social.Continue reading…After The Epstein Files, It’s Become All But Impossible To Believe He Killed Himselfby Tyler DurdenAuthored by Tom Elliott via substack,As soon as the feds announced Jeffrey Epstein killed himself while awaiting prosecution on charges of sex trafficking, the popular reaction was disbelief: “Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself” quickly became an internet meme. And now, with the release of the Epstein Files, it’s only become harder — if not all but impossible — to believe the official story that Jeffrey Epstein hanged himself in the Manhattan Correctional Center on August 10, 2019.The DoJ’s Inspector General released a report that officially concluded there was no reason to doubt the suicide story, but actually contains many disturbing details if you read the included evidence. As summarized by JustFacts:Continue reading…The Art of Liberty Foundation… in Spanish!We are adding a new section to Five Meme Friday to promote our new Substack, Telegram group, Instagram, and translations of To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many in Spanish. Please tell your Spanish speaking friends! “Go Paid” on our Spanish Substack to support getting voluntaryist ideas, books, and memes translated into Spanish AND get a free paperback copy of To See the Cage is To Leave It in Latin American Spanish.El gobierno es ilegítimo y criminal – El voluntarismo es la respuesta – Etienne en “The Peoples Reset”Derrick Broze (Introducción): Nuestro próximo presentador es un buen amigo mío que se ha dedicado a la organización de muchas maneras diferentes.Y cuando me siento aquí y pienso en todo lo que hemos hecho a lo largo de los años, desde las pancartas gigantes desplegadas por Filadelfia que decían a la gente que el gobierno tenía el crimen organizado y cosas por el estilo, ha sido realmente hermoso.También es autor y presentador.Él organiza la conferencia Liberty on the Rocks – Sedona – The Voluntaryism Conference , que tuvo lugar en Sedona hace un par de meses, además de muchas otras iniciativas importantes. Hoy nos hablará sobre el gobierno, qué es y si es necesario o no. Así que, por favor, ¡denle un fuerte aplauso a Etienne de la Boétie-Squared!Etienne de la Boetie2: Mi nombre es Etienne De La Boétie2 . Soy el fundador de la Fundación El Arte de la Libertad . Somos una organización emergente de políticas públicas que expone la ilegitimidad y la criminalidad del gobierno desde una perspectiva voluntarista basada en principios. Si no sabes qué es un voluntarista, te lo voy a explicar.Continuar leyendo…You can see this talk in English Here: “Daily News of The Week”The Standardization of Murderby Ray Horvath, “The Source” :)Apparently, most homicides go unreported.Let me start with the old joke about the cherries, which explains the way the sliding rule works:Here is this tramp who steals a large bag of cherries. He walks down the road and gets hungry. He gobbles up some of the cherries, but there is plenty left by the time he gets sick of the cherries, so he gets angry and pees on the bag. Tired and fully content, he lies down under a tree and falls asleep. He wakes up the next morning, and he feels famished, but the only edible things around are the cherries he pissed on the previous night. He reluctantly starts taking cherries out of the bag and examines each of them closely, concluding, “This one is okay, this one is okay,” and he keeps eating them until nothing is left.These are cheap tricks, but they work, so they never go out of fashion. The masses are usually tricked into focus on one thing, while they are being robbed blind:Continue reading…The Return of ‘Havana Syndrome’ as Cuba Faces Renewed US Pressure Campaignby Alan Macleod, MPN.newsAs the Trump administration turns the screw on Cuba in an attempt at regime change, media are showing renewed interest in Havana Syndrome, the discredited theory that U.S. officials and secret agents are being targeted by a heretofore unknown directed energy weapon, making them sick.CBS News’ flagship political affairs show, “60 Minutes” aired another special on Havana Syndrome Sunday. The episode concentrated on profiling supposed victims of the mystery ailment, and claimed that the U.S. government had purchased a directed-energy weapon from a “Russian criminal network,” and that they had begun testing this weapon on animals.The show claimed that hundreds of American officials have been targeted by U.S. adversaries, yet the government remains reluctant to even look into the matter properly.CBS’ claims were picked up and amplified across the press, including by The Hill, MSN, The New York Post, Newsmax, AOL, and The Daily Telegraph.Continue reading…Simplicius Iran Update: Final Escalatory Act Awaits as Iran and Israel Trade ‘Warning Shots’ on Each Other’s Nuke Plantsby SimpliciusFor those who thought the war could not “heat up” even more after Israel’s provocation against Iran’s largest gas field, it has apparently entered its final decisive act. After the failure of the main operational phase, wherein the US-Israeli hydra was rebuffed from inflicting any kind of decisive military defeat on Iran, we have come to the logical conclusion, where now threats of existential devastation against critical civilian infrastructure have reached the last escalatory rung.Days ago Israel launched what is presumed to be a final “warning” attack which landed mere meters from the joint Iranian-Russian operated Bushehr nuclear power plant:Yesterday Iran responded by striking in the vicinity of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant:A CNN report captured another series of powerful blows against Tel Aviv which followed the Dimona strikes, with US-Israeli air defenses appearing totally useless:Continue reading…Is a Revolution Percolating in the US Military?by Karen KwiatkowskiJust before the US-Israeli war on Iran went kinetic, I shared my thoughts on literal “poop” deck of the USS Gerald Ford. “T-shirts and mop heads are finding their way into the pipes, and the proper explanation is sailors are attempting to declog these post-modern shit-suckers, but a bit of old fashioned rage and frustration may also play a part.I was coy, but Colonel McGregor has not been. He assessed at the time it was sabotage “out of extreme dissatisfaction.” After 240 days at sea, the USS Ford was bound for Norfolk from the Caribbean for overdue repairs and crew changes. Most of the previous several months had been plagued with non-functioning and flooded toilets, and bad leadership. But Donald Trump decided he needed to send this battle group immediately to the Middle East, as part of a “war” buildup. Alfred Lord Tennyson spoke for these men and women: “Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die.”Why? In Tennyson’s poem, “Someone had blundered” and the 1854 Battle of Balaclava remains instructive, in more ways than one. Our very model of a modern Major-Generalissimo read the headline, missed the lesson, and said “Hold my beer!”Continue reading…New York Governor Begs Wealthy Taxpayers To Stop Leaving The Stateby Tyler DurdenNew York Governor Kathy Hochul became infamous during the pandemic lockdowns for her authoritarian policies and bizarre justifications.Some may remember her viral speech to a congregation of NY Christians about how “God wants them to take the experimental Covid vaccine”.“I prayed a lot to God during this time and you know what – God did answer our prayers. He made the smartest men and women, the scientists, the doctors, the researchers – he made them come up with a vaccine. That is from God to us and we must say, thank you, God. Thank you.”“All of you, yes, I know you’re vaccinated, you’re the smart ones, but you know there’s people out there who aren’t listening to God and what God wants.“Continue reading…How Modern Bread is Killing Youby Lily-Rose DawsonI want you to go get your bread. The loaf on your counter, the one in your fridge, whatever you have. Flip it over and read the ingredients out loud.I’ll wait.Enriched wheat flour, high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, mono and diglycerides, calcium propionate, and then, somewhere toward the bottom, azodicarbonamide. Which is a dough conditioner, totally normal, widely used, also the primary ingredient in yoga mats and shoe rubber. That last part is true. I did not make it up. The same chemical that gives your foam mat that satisfying sponginess is in your sandwich bread, and the FDA is fine with it, and nobody mentions it, and we all just keep eating the bread.This is where I tell you that one in three American adults is currently pre-diabetic, that type 2 diabetes rates have gone up 700% since 1960, that celiac disease has increased 400% since the 1950s. And this is where you nod and think yes, modern diet, sedentary lifestyle, personal responsibility, I’ve heard the speech. But here’s what doesn’t fit that speech: a farm laborer outside York, England, in 1324, was eating two to three pounds of bread every single day. Seventy percent of his calories. Then going outside and building cathedrals that are still standing while your knees ache on the stairs. No pre-diabetes. No gluten sensitivity crisis. No inflammatory bowel disease.Continue reading…Watch McDonald’s test humanoid robots on the front lineby Trevor MoggA McDonald’s in the Chinese megacity of Shanghai is testing humanoid robots in roles usually the preserve of human workers, with other types of robots also let loose inside the restaurant to greet and entertain diners.Truth be told, the robots don’t look particularly advanced, but a video (below) showing them in action does hint at a future where bipedal bots and other machines handle routine tasks at fast food restaurants, from welcoming customers and taking orders to delivering food and cleaning the floor.The McDonald’s trial, using robots supplied by Chinese firm Keenon Robotics, comes at a time of economic contradiction in China, where businesses in some sectors are struggling to hire even as millions of young people face difficulty finding work.It’s this tension that makes the McDonald’s trial stand out, with restaurant operators interested in deploying a reliable, potentially low-cost workforce in a strategy that raises fears of displacement among human workers in the service sector, which up to now has been a popular route into the workforce.Continue reading…The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed itby Steve H. HankeThe U.S. government is insolvent. That’s not hyperbole — it’s the conclusion drawn directly from the Treasury Department’s own consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2025, released last week to near-total media silence. The numbers: $6.06 trillion in total assets against $47.78 trillion in total liabilities as of September 30, 2025.Importantly, the $47.78 trillion in reported liabilities does not include the unfunded obligations of social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare — those are disclosed separately in the off-balance-sheet Statement of Social Insurance (SOSI).The government’s consolidated balance sheet position, excluding the SOSI, deteriorated by nearly $2.07 trillion between FY 2024 and FY 2025, reaching a staggering negative $41.72 trillion. Total liabilities are now nearly eight times the value of reported assets. The largest drivers were a $2 trillion increase in federal debt and interest payable (now $30.33 trillion) and a $438.8 billion increase in federal employee and veteran benefits payable (now $15.47 trillion).The off-balance-sheet picture is even more alarming. The 75-year unfunded social insurance obligation surged by $10.1 trillion in a single year, rising from $78.3 trillion in FY 2024 to $88.4 trillion in FY 2025 — driven primarily by a $6.9 trillion jump in projected Medicare Part B shortfalls and a $2.5 trillion increase for Social Security. The Treasury’s Statement of Long-Term Fiscal Projections shows the 75-year fiscal gap widening from 4.3% of GDP in FY 2024 to 4.7% in FY 2025.Continue reading…The Price of Refrigerators Drops 99 Percent: Free Markets and Human Ingenuityby Gale L. PooleySummary: A century ago, people used large ice blocks and wooden cabinets to keep food cold. Today, electric refrigeration is more affordable, easy, and reliable thanks to technological innovation. The shift from ice blocks to electrons shows how human ingenuity can transform necessities from costly burdens into everyday conveniences.In 1925, households kept food cool with iceboxes—wooden insulated cabinets chilled by a block of ice. Depending on size and quality, they typically cost between $15 and $50. With entry-level workers earning about $0.25 an hour, a $35 icebox carried a time price of 140 hours.Today, a 4.4-cubic-foot mini fridge at Walmart sells for about $184. Entry-level workers in limited-service restaurants earn roughly $18.75 an hour, bringing the time price down to just 9.8 hours.For the time it took a worker in 1925 to earn the money for one icebox, a worker today can buy 14.3 mini fridges.Continue reading…Dismantling the ‘three camps of awareness’ nonsenseEtienne Note: Since we covered the original David Hughes “Three Camps of Awareness” article where he threw an elbow at Jeremy “Jerm” Nell, I wanted to carry Jerm’s rebuttal as well.by JermDavid Hughes has been on my podcast a few times and I’ve generally enjoyed his work. Back in mid-2025, for example, on my UK Column podcast, he chatted to me about psychological warfare and how to best understand it.Then, out of nowhere, a few weeks ago, he wrote a bizarre article in which he ‘outlined three camps of awareness’ and questioned my independence—hinting that I might be controlled opposition.I don’t like public spats, and I don’t consider this one to be such—since I’m critiquing his article only because he mentioned me, UK Column, and several excellent thinkers who, like David, have appeared on my podcast.Continue reading…Oil Tumbles, Stocks Surge As Israeli TV Reports US Seeks ‘One Month Ceasefire’; Tehran Refuses Talks With ‘Backstabbers’by Tyler DurdenUS seeks a one-month ceasefire with a framework to end the war, according to Israel Channel 12 reports; Telegraph says Iranians see Witkoff and Kushner as ‘backstabbers’WSJ, Fox reporting 3,000 elite Army Airborne soldiers to be ordered to Middle East. Axios says US awaits Iran response to proposed Thursday peace talks. Trump says Iran has been destroyed “militarily”.Backchannel diplomacy vs skepticism: Abbas Araghchi reportedly signaled openness to negotiations with the US via envoy Steve Witkoff, but Israel has appeared cool on deal prospects or offramp.Heavy exchange of fire and testing red lines: Iran continues missile and drone waves targeting Israel and US bases, amid reports of overnight airstrikes on military and gas infrastructure near Isfahan.Continue reading…ICE’s Bounty Hunters (Federalized Army) – They Are Paying Local Cops!by Ken KlippensteinWhile ICE agents are temporarily confusing things even more at airports, behind the scenes the Trump administration is paying a posse of local police to carry out its immigration war.An internal ICE financial ledger I obtained shows how the agency is turning local police departments across the county into a vast, decentralized immigration army. This includes payments if cops sign up to be deputized, reimbursements for transportation, salary supplements for cops who process migrant children, and per-arrest-style incentive payments.All of this is taking place under an ICE program called 287(g), part of a 1996 law that granted the Attorney General (and later the Secretary of Homeland Security) the authority to enter into written agreements with state and local governments on immigration. The first agreement under the law was signed by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement after 9/11; as of last year, the number of agreements has swelled past 1,000.Today, the program employs a “task force model” under which local police are deputized as ICE agents with the authority to carry out federal immigration law. So despite the broad public backlash against ICE, the agency has a way to carry out its mission without drawing attention to itself.Continue reading…Blocking the Internet Archive Won’t Stop AI, But It Will Erase the Web’s Historical Recordby Joe MullinImagine a newspaper publisher announcing it will no longer allow libraries to keep copies of its paper.That’s effectively what’s begun happening online in the last few months. The Internet Archive—the world’s largest digital library—has preserved newspapers since it went online in the mid-1990s. The Archive’s mission is to preserve the web and make it accessible to the public. To that end, the organization operates the Wayback Machine, which now contains more than one trillion archived web pages and is used daily by journalists, researchers, and courts.But in recent months The New York Times began blocking the Archive from crawling its website, using technical measures that go beyond the web’s traditional robots.txt rules. That risks cutting off a record that historians and journalists have relied on for decades. Other newspapers, including The Guardian, seem to be following suit.Continue reading…How to Keep ICE Agents Out of Your Phone at the Airportby Nikita MazurovWith Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents deployed to more than a dozen airports across the U.S. and border device searches growing increasingly common, it’s more important than ever to consider your digital security before you travel.The risks are real. Customs and Border Protection agents have the authority to examine travelers’ devices. In June, for instance, federal agents denied a Norwegian tourist entry to the U.S. after looking through his phone. (Authorities claim they turned him away for admitted drug use; he says it was over a meme depicting Vice President JD Vance as a bald baby.)Immigration and Customs Enforcement have already started targeting travelers, with agents in plain clothes forcefully detaining a mother in front of her young daughter at San Francisco International Airport on Sunday after a tip from the Transportation Security Administration.If you’re flying, take these steps to reduce the likelihood that your sensitive information is compromised at the airport.Continue reading…Landmark US Case Finally Holds Social Media Giants Responsible for Harming Our ChildrenBy G.CalderA California jury has found Meta and YouTube liable in a landmark case on children’s social media addictions, ruling that Instagram and YouTube were negligently designed and that they failed to warn users about the risks to minors. The plaintiff, identified as KGM, said she became hooked on YouTube at six and Instagram at nine, and that the platforms contributed to depression, self-harm, and a deep deterioration in her mental health.Alongside a hefty $375 million in civil penalties imposed in a New Mexico case, jurors awarded KGM $6 million in damages, assigning 70% of the fault to Meta and 30% to Google’s YouTube, and recommended punitive damages after finding what the AP described as “malicious” disregard for the risks to children.Continue reading…Upcoming Liberty EventsGreat Homeschool Convention – Ohio, Cincinnati, OH, US, April 9th – 11th, 2026Red Pill Friends April Tour ‘26, Black Mountain, NC; Bon Aqua, TN; Memphis, TN; Tulsa, OK & Bandera, TX, US, April 16th – 28th, 2026California’s Decline: A Warning to America, San Diego, CA, US, April 25th, 2026LibertyCon Europe, Madrid, Spain, April 24th – 26th, 2026The People vs Poison, Washington, D.C., US, April 27th, 2026Mid-Continent Liberty Festival, Spavinaw, OK, US, April 29th – May 4th, 2026Buenos Aires Anarchist Film Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 1st – 3rd, 2026Upstate Anarchist Book Fair, Binghamton, NY, US, May 2nd – 3rd, 2026Constellation Anarchist Festival, Montreal, Canada, May 14th – 20th, 202654th Annual Rainbow Gathering, Northern California, US, July 1st – 7th, 2026Midwest Peace & Liberty Fest, Lake Satoshi, MI, US, August 6th – 9th, 2026Liberty International World Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 7th – 9th, 2026Northeast Unschooling Conference, Pittsfield, MA, US, August 15th – 18th, 2026International Conference for Anarchist Studies, Manchester, UK, August 26th – 28th, 2026Free Cities Conference, Roatan, Honduras, September 3rd – 6th, 2026VonuFest, Illinois, US, September 21st – 28th, 2026AnarCon, Gore, VA, US, September 25th – 27th, 2026Memes BonanzaTruth Music of the WeekDISL AUTOMATIC (And Tupac!) – KILLUMINATI (OFFICIAL VIDEO)Interviewer: next shit’s called Killuminati, because that’s really what the Illuminati is on2Pac: That’s why i put the ‘K’ to it, but u know what niggas is telling me about this illuminati shit while I’m in jailLike the diamonds and all that. (right right right)That’s another way to keep your self esteem low, That Another Way To Keep You Un-confidentAnd I’m putting the ‘K’ because I’m killing that Illuminati shit!, trust me[Verse 1: D.I.S.L. Automatic]People yelling ‘wake up’ but they’re still dreamingThey say ‘Killuminati’ but they don’t know the meaningThey took Pac’s saying way out of contextWhat he meant is that Illuminati shit is nonsenseHe wasn’t saying we should kill anybodyHe was saying we should kill that talk of Illuminati‘Cause all it is is a bunch of hocus pocusTo make us feel powerless and shift all our focusFrom the corporations and the corrupt governmentTo the secret societies and sacred covenantsGet the rest of the lyrics here: https://genius.com/Disl-automatic-killuminati-lyricslibertarian Intentional Community Rounduplibertarian Intentional Community Roundup is where we cover libertarian and voluntaryist intentional communities and free private cities including Prospera (Honduras), The Free State Project (New Hampshire), Liberstad (Norway), Montelibero (Montenegro), Los Propietarios, (Argentina), Liberland (Croatia/Serbia border), Network States in general and Sea Steading (The Oceans). I am also covering secession movements including Greater Idaho, Please send details of any new happenings, projects or projects I am missing!There is a Facebook Group Called: Jeremy Kauffman is a Fed Sent to Destroy the Liberty Movement.Update on our Article: What is the Deal with the Free State PARTY in New Hampshire? I have learned of (and Joined!) the Facebook Group: Jeremy Kauffman is a Fed Sent to Destroy the Liberty Movement. There are now 108 members up from 94 when I grabbed the screenshot above. You can find the group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1396401818378158Here are a sampling of posts:The LiberatorGet a NEW 2026 Liberator for “Going Paid” (or upgrading from monthly) as a $50 Yearly Subscriber to This Substack.We just announced the BRAND NEW 2026 Liberator (Version 2.3), which includes the ePub versions of “Government” – The Biggest Scams in History Exposed! 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We have some great perks to say Thank You! including copies of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!, Liberator Flash Drives, Signed Hard Copies, calls with Etienne, and even the ability to have an Art of Liberty Foundation event with tier one Liberty speakers in your City or Town for your friends, family and neighbors!2. Go Paid on Substack! – We simply couldn’t do what we do without the support of our sponsors and paid subscribers on Substack! If you are enjoying the Daily News, Important News, or Five Meme Friday on Substack we hope you will consider “Going Paid” on Substack. All it takes is a click and we have some great premiums to say: Thank You! WE ARE NOW BEING HEAVILY CENSORED ON SUBSTACK. See my Subscriber Letter Here.3. Buy Us a Coffee… Err Juice! at https://ko-fi.com/artofliberty – Support us for as little as $5… We really, really appreciate it! OR Buy Us a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/etienne2 BTW, right now coffee and juice are tied!4. 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Please feel free to forward this email to friends and colleagues.Sincerely,Etienne de la Boetie2Executive Director,The Art of Liberty FoundationAuthor of: To See the Cage is to Leave It & “Government” The Biggest Scam in History … ExposedFive Meme Friday is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Etienne De La Boetie2 on Doc Malik’s Podcast: The Power You Gave Away, Why We Obey and How to Stop
We cover everything from why people obey (mental slavery) to Zionism to who is behind the installation of Trump Etienne de la Boetie2: My real name is Howard, but I usually go by my pen name, Etienne de la Boetie. If you want to talk about that, we can.Doc Malik:I know. But is your real name, like, a secret?Etienne de la Boetie2: Well, it’s not a secret in the sense… do you want to do this on screen, or do you want to do this in the interview or before we do it?Doc Malik: We’re recording now. It’s whatever you like.What Is the Behind the Paywall Today?The Rest of the Transcript… Illustrated with Etienne’s memes, visualizations, and slides!The Best “Go Paid” Deal on Substack! You Get REAL Stuff!!Go paid at the $5 a month level, and we will send you both the PDF and e-Pub versions of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many and a coupon code for 10% off anything in the https://artofliberty.org/store/.Go paid at the $50 a year level, and we will send you a free paperback edition of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many OR “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! OR a 64GB Liberator flash drive if you live in the US. If you are international, we will give you a $10 credit towards shipping if you agree to pay the remainder.Support us at the $250 Founding Member Level and get a signed high-resolution hardcover of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! + Liberator flash drive + a signed high-resolution hardcover of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many + everything else in our “Everything Bundle” of the best in voluntaryist thought delivered domestically. International pays shipping. Our only option for signed copies besides catching Etienne @ an event.
Tonight! 5:00 PST / 8:00 EST – Etienne’s LiveStream on The Greatest Theft in Human History!
How the Banks & “Gov’t” will Steal $3.5 million “Legally” through inflation, taxes, and Social Security shenanigans – Who is Behind the Theft? We will be Streaming LIVE tonight at 5:00 PM PST / 8:00 PM EST.Tickets: $25 Tickets and Event Info: https://artofliberty.org/an-evening-with-etienne/OR Get a Ticket Included with any Art of Liberty Foundation Sponsorship + a Copy of the NEW 5.5 version of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History.. Exposed! + Perks! at ArtOfLiberty.org/SponsorThe Greatest Theft in Human History! The Banks and Government Are Stealing $3.5 Million From the Average Worker.Article: Here and BelowPress Release: Here.Full Analysis in PDF: Here & ArtOfLiberty.org/InflationFull Analysis in HTML: ArtOfLiberty.org/InflationHow the fractional reserve banking system, government taxation, and a manipulated inflation number combine to extract more than a full lifetime of earnings from every American worker — confirmed by four independent AI systems.By Etienne de la Boetie2Founder, Art of Liberty FoundationWith research assistance from Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s GPT – Full Analysis Available at ArtOfLiberty.org/InflationLet’s start with a number: $3,520,000.That is the amount the median American worker earning $60,000 per year will lose — over a 40-year career and 20-year retirement — to the fractional reserve banking system, government taxation, and Social Security benefit manipulation. Combined, these mechanisms extract 147% of gross lifetime earnings. More than you will ever earn. The system doesn’t just take your money — it takes money you haven’t earned yet, your purchasing power vs. an honest monetary system, and then rips you off in retirement by underpaying you what you are really owed in Social Security benefits.This is not a political opinion. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is an accounting — calculated independently by four separate AI systems using audited primary-source data from the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the BLS, and the GAO. When Claude, Grok, Gemini, and GPT-5.2 all produce the same order of magnitude without coordination, the pattern is not noise. It’s signal.Today, the Art of Liberty Foundation is releasing The Greatest Theft in Human History — the most comprehensive public accounting of monetary extraction ever attempted. Here’s what we found.The Number That Should End the ConversationThe dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. That’s not an estimate. That’s from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own CPI Calculator.During that same period, the M2 money supply expanded approximately 1,380 times— from roughly $25 billion to $21.5 trillion. Real GDP grew approximately 100 times. The gap — 43 times more money than economic output — represents purchasing power transferred from everyone who holds dollars to those who created the new ones.Those new dollars were not created democratically. They were created by banks — private institutions that generate money by typing numbers into computers when making loans — and injected into the economy through a network of 24 “Primary Dealers” who get access to newly created money first, before prices adjust. By the time that money reaches your paycheck, prices have already risen.This is the Cantillon Effect: a 300-year-old observation that new money doesn’t enter the economy neutrally. It enriches those closest to its creation and impoverishes those furthest from it. In 2024, U.S. banks earned $268 billion in net income — confirmed by FDIC audited data. Over the full period since 1913, cumulative bank profits run to an estimated $15–25 trillion in today’s dollars.“Every dollar the banking system extracts is a dollar that, under honest money, would have gone to the person who earned it.”Your Missing MillionsHere is what the extraction looks like, by income level, over a 40-year career using the Fed’s own conservative 2% inflation target:Understanding the Cantillon Effect & The Compound TrapThe purchasing power that evaporates under inflation is only one aspect of the theft of fractional reserve banking. The system also extracts using the aforementioned Cantillon Effect where the banks (Primary Dealers) who receive the new money created out of thin air are able to capture the maximum purchasing power of that money which is reduced considerably once it reaches the average worker.Banks and their borrowers receive new money FIRST, before prices adjust. They buy at pre-inflation prices; workers receive wages last, at post-inflation prices. This is a directional wealth transfer, not neutral dilution. Think about the 500,000+ single-family homes that private equity has bought since 2012, driving up costs for everyone. The institutional single-family rental (SFR) industry is the Cantillon Effect made flesh — in the one asset class workers historically used to escape inflation.The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 produced roughly 3.8 million foreclosures by 2010, with 7+ million eventual foreclosures by 2014. Median home prices dropped 33%. The people losing those homes couldn’t get credit to buy them back because mortgage standards had tightened. The institutions that received the Fed’s QE money could.The key government catalyst: Fannie Mae’s REO-to-Rental Initiative (2012) allowed pre-qualified investors to bid on large portfolios of foreclosed properties at bulk auction — an arrangement that individual families physically could not participate in. The government sold foreclosed American homes in bulk to the exact institutions that had just received the Fed’s newly created money.By 2024, institutional investors owned approximately 450,000 single-family rental units (GAO-24-106643). The Philadelphia Fed documented that institutional investors raise rents 60% faster than individual landlords.The same cheap money that erodes your wages also inflates the assets you can’t afford to own — and the institutions that received that money first are now your landlord.The Compound TrapThe Compound Trap is the mechanism by which the inflation created by fractional reserve banking forces workers to borrow at interest — from the very institutions that created the inflation — to afford assets whose prices have been inflated by the money creation process itself.Examples:Housing: A home that cost $25,000 in 1971 costs $400,000+ today — not because the home is 16x better, but because the money supply expanded 1,380x while GDP grew only ~100x. The worker must borrow $320,000 at interest from a bank that created the money out of thin air. Over 30 years at 7%, they pay $446,000 in interest alone — more than the house. The bank risked nothing.Education: College tuition has risen 1,200% since 1980, far outpacing general inflation. Students borrow $37,000 on average (and often much more) to purchase credentials in a labor market that has not kept pace with credential inflation. The loans are made in bank-created money; the interest is real.Healthcare and Consumer Debt: Medical costs, auto loans, and credit card balances all compound the trap. Each dollar borrowed is a dollar that was created by the banking system, and each dollar of interest is a transfer from the worker to the bank that created the principal from nothing.The median worker at $60,000/year pays approximately $173,000 in compound trap costs over a 40-year career — in mortgage interest, student loan interest, and consumer debt interest — all on money that was created out of thin air.Under alternative inflation indexes (ShadowStats/Chapwood 7–10%), these figures multiply 3–5x.The Monopoly Government’s Confiscatory Taxes: $818,000 from the Median Worker Adds to the ExtractionFederal, state, and local governments extract approximately $818,000 from the median worker earning $60,000 over a 40-year career: $240,000 in federal income taxes, $367,000 in payroll taxes (the full economic burden, including the employer share that would otherwise be wages), and $211,000 in state and local taxes. For the $250K earner, the figure reaches $4.46 million. For the $1M earner, $19.7 million.The Honest Acknowledgment: You Received Some ServicesUnlike the fractional reserve banking extraction — where the wealth transfer produces no benefit whatsoever for the worker — government taxation does fund services that people use. Roads, courts, national defense, law enforcement, fire protection, public schools, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are real services delivered to real people. Our analysis does not pretend otherwise.But acknowledging that services exist is not the same as accepting that the price was fair, the delivery was efficient, or the arrangement was voluntary.Three structural problems make the tax extraction far more damaging than it appears:Problem 1: The Waste Is StaggeringThe GAO’s own auditors — not libertarian critics, but the government’s internal watchdog — estimated that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud alone (U.S. GAO, based on fiscal years 2018–2022). In FY 2024, agencies reported $162 billion in improper payments across 68 programs, with 84% being overpayments (U.S. GAO). Since FY 2003, cumulative improper payment estimates have totaled approximately $2.8 trillion (U.S. GAO) — and the GAO acknowledges this is a substantial undercount because many susceptible programs don’t report at all.In a scandal that came to be known as the Pentagon’s Bishops Fund scandal, the Department of Defense was caught buying fuel in bulk and then reselling it to the individual armed services at a cost significantly higher than if they services just bought fuel on the open market. They took the “profits” and put them into a slush fund.That means the federal government admits to losing roughly $162–$521 billion per year to waste, fraud, and improper payments. The median worker’s $240,000 in lifetime federal income taxes includes their proportional share of this waste: approximately $30,000–$80,000 over a career that went to payments the government itself says should never have been made.Problem 2: Monopoly PricingGovernment services operate as coercive monopolies — you pay whether you use them or not, and you cannot choose a competing provider. Economic theory and empirical evidence consistently show that monopoly providers charge more and deliver less than competitive alternatives.Private sector administrative overhead runs 5–17% depending on the industry; the federal government’s effective overhead — including compliance costs imposed on citizens and businesses — has been estimated at 20–35% when hidden regulatory burdens are included.A conservative estimate: if the services currently provided by government were delivered through competitive markets at private-sector efficiency levels, the cost savings would be 30–50% on the service-delivery components — representing roughly $250,000–$400,000 of the median worker’s lifetime tax burden that purchased bureaucratic overhead, waste, and monopoly pricing rather than actual services.Problem 3: The Seen and the UnseenThe most devastating cost of taxation is not what the government spent badly — it’s what the economy never produced. Every dollar extracted in taxes is a dollar that was not saved, invested, or spent by the person who earned it. The cumulative effect of removing $818,000 from the median worker’s lifetime economic activity — and trillions from the economy as a whole — is reduced capital formation, less entrepreneurship, fewer innovations, and slower productivity growth.Economists call this the “deadweight loss” of taxation — the economic activity that is destroyed, not merely transferred. Estimates of the deadweight loss range from $0.20 to $0.50 per dollar of tax revenue raised, meaning that for every dollar the government collects, an additional $0.20–$0.50 in economic value is destroyed in the process. Applied to the median worker’s $818,000 lifetime tax burden, this represents an additional $164,000–$409,000 in economic value that simply ceased to exist — jobs not created, businesses not started, innovations not pursued, and compounding growth never realized.Under a voluntaryist free-market alternative, the services people actually want — roads, dispute resolution, security, education, healthcare, retirement savings — would be provided by competing firms, mutual aid societies, and voluntary associations at market prices, with the discipline of consumer choice replacing the inertia of monopoly.Fraternal societies and mutual aid associations provided healthcare insurance, disability insurance, pensions, and other safety net services before they were crowded out by the monopoly “free” services mandated by “government.” The various organizations competed vigorously with each other to see who could provide better benefits at the most cost-effective prices.Historical examples are not hypothetical: private roads, private courts (arbitration handles more commercial disputes than government courts today), private schools (which educate at roughly 50–70% of the per-pupil cost of public schools), and fraternal societies that provided healthcare and life insurance to working-class Americans before government programs crowded them out in the mid-20th century.The $818,000 is not the price of civilization. It is the price of monopoly — and the monopolist has $2.8 trillion in admitted payment errors to show for it.The Government’s $190 Billion Incentive to Lie About the Actual Rate of Inflation to Steal Grandma’s Social SecurityThe BLS’s “official” inflation number drives Social Security COLAs, federal pension adjustments, military retirement, TIPS bond yields, and more. If that number is systematically low, the government saves money — at the direct expense of retirees and veterans.Our analysis — confirmed independently by all four AI models — finds that using real inflation rates (as measured by the ShadowStats SGS-Alternate or the Chapwood Index, both of which show 9–11%/yr versus the BLS’s 2–3%) would increase federal CPI-linked obligations by approximately $182–198 billion per year. Social Security alone accounts for roughly $112–115 billion of that gap.The mechanism is elegant in its dishonesty. The Social Security Act requires COLAs to be based on the CPI-W “as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” The law doesn’t specify how the BLS calculates it. So when the BLS introduced Owner’s Equivalent Rent (1983), geometric mean weighting (1999), hedonic adjustments, and substitution bias — each of which independently lowers measured inflation — it automatically reduced every COLA payment in the federal budget without a single Congressional vote.The compounding effect is devastating. A retiree who began collecting Social Security in 2004 receives approximately $2,032/month today under BLS-based COLAs. Under ShadowStats-level adjustments applied to the same starting benefit, they would receive approximately $4,500–5,000/month. The cumulative lifetime underpayment for a single retiree exceeds $200,000 — and the median worker retiring today will have a 20-year retirement COLA shortfall of approximately $810,000.The two numbers aren’t contradictory — they’re the same mechanism at two different scales. The $200,000 is a historical example anchored to a real retiree who started collecting in 2004 at the then-average benefit of $922/month. The $810,000 is a forward projection for today’s median worker retiring at roughly $2,100/month — more than double that baseline.Since the annual COLA shortfall is a percentage gap applied to the monthly benefit, a higher starting benefit produces a proportionally larger dollar shortfall every year. That shortfall then compounds geometrically over 20 years because each year’s understated COLA reduces the base from which the next year’s adjustment is calculated. Same theft, two different scales.How Many Years Did You Work For Free?Here is the clearest way to see the scale of the extraction. After a 40-year career and 20-year retirement, how many of those 60 years did you work just to cover the wealth transferred to the banking system, the government, and the CPI manipulation that reduces your retirement benefits?For the median worker at $60K, the combined extraction represents 42.8 years of labor — more than the entire 40-year career. The worker keeps only 27% of lifetime earnings.Every income level from $35K to $1M exceeds 40 years of extraction because of two dynamics:1. Under an honest monetary system like the historical gold standard where dollars can’t be created digitally or on a printing press, prices are benignly deflationary. The costs of the luxuries and necessities of life go DOWN each and every year 1-2% reflecting the innovations in better manufacturing, cheaper materials and more effective distribution. The average worker would be getting richer, the Cantillon Effect would be eliminated, and workers wouldn’t have to borrow (Or would borrow much LESS for houses, education, and healthcare)2. The SS COLA underpayment continues extracting value during retirement. The system doesn’t stop taking when you stop working. The government continues stealing from you by underpaying you what you are due from mandatory Cost-Of-Living-Adjustments by lying about what the REAL rate of inflation is.The extraction is most devastating for those who can least afford it. The $35K earner loses 17.7 years to SS COLA underpayment alone — 44% of lifetime earnings — while the $1M earner loses only 1.5 years to the same mechanism. The system is regressive by design.This Is Not AccidentalThe report documents five hallmarks of organized crime that sustain this extraction:Regulatory Capture: 304 revolving-door hires between the 20 largest U.S. banks and regulatory agencies, representing 2,256 cumulative years of public office (Cambridge University Press / Journal of Institutional Economics, 2019).Capture of the Economics Profession: The Federal Reserve spends hundreds of millions annually funding economists at universities, journals, and conferences. 84 of 190 editorial board members across top economics journals have Fed ties. The field cannot produce independent criticism of the institution funding it.Capture of Government: The FIRE sector has been the largest or second-largest source of federal campaign contributions in nearly every election cycle since 1990, totaling over $20 billion since tracking began — producing a 180:1 return on political investment. Industry executives cycle in and out of government at the highest levels.Capture of Academia: Compulsory schooling systems presents “government” as legitimate, desirable and necessary before kids are old enough to evaluate the logic and morality of the claim. The schools present the Federal Reserve as a neutral public institution, never teach that banks create money through lending, and never question or debate the legitimacy of the system.Monopolization of Media: Six corporations now control approximately 90% of what Americans see, hear, and read. The consolidation was financed with cheap debt from the very banking system being normalized. No major network has produced a serious investigative piece on fractional reserve banking as a mechanism of wealth transfer.What You Can Do Right NowFirst: verify it yourself. Open any AI model — Claude, Grok, Gemini, or ChatGPT — and ask it to calculate the lifetime cost of the fractional reserve banking system to a median worker at your income level. We have specific prompts in the report. You will get a number in the same range documented in this report. The directional transfer from wage-earners to money-creators is a consensus finding across every model tested.Second: share this report. It is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — reproduce and distribute freely with attribution. You can download the full PDF with hyperlinks at ArtOfLiberty.org/Inflation. You can buy printed copies at ArtOfLiberty.org/Store.Third: support the Art of Liberty Foundation! We are an independent organization with no government funding, no banking-sector advertising revenue, and no institutional dependencies. The work described in this report — and the investigative journalism that will follow — depends entirely on voluntary support. Become a sponsor at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor.“The magicians can only fool the audience until the audience understands the trick.That moment is now.”— Etienne de la Boetie², Art of Liberty FoundationArtOfLiberty.org · ArtOfLiberty.org/InflationReleased under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — reproduce and distributeAbout The AuthorsEtienne de la Boetie² is the founder of the Art of Liberty Foundation and an internationally recognized expert and speaker on voluntaryism and government illegitimacy, criminality, and corruption. He is the author of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! – How Inter-Generational Organized Crime Runs the “Government,”Media and Academiaand To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many, and the editor of the Art of Liberty Daily News and Five Meme Friday, which delivers hard-hitting voluntaryist memes and the best of the alternative media. His original writing and research can be found at ArtOfLiberty.Foundation and, in Spanish, at ArteDeLaLibertad.org.About The Ai Co-Authors/ResearchersThis analysis was conducted with four independent AI models: Anthropic’s Claude (Sonnet), xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s GPT. Each was prompted independently with identical data and methodology parameters. Their convergent results strengthen the findings by demonstrating that the extraction pattern is visible to any sufficiently capable analytical system, regardless of corporate ownership or training bias.Thursday Night, March 26th – Live Event in Memphis – Global Live StreamOn Thursday night Etienne will be breaking down The Greatest Theft in Human History. Who is behind it? How do they get away with it? What can we do about it?Get tickets at https://artofliberty.org/an-evening-with-etienne/ORGet Tickets with a Sponsorship of the Art of Liberty Foundation + the New Version 5.5 of Etienne’s book: “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! + PerksArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor“Government” is and has been “The Biggest Scam in History” and it has enabled The Greatest Theft in Human History… There wouldn’t be fractional reserve banking, the Federal Reserve, the 1933 theft of the people’s gold, legal tender laws, or fiat currency without “government”
The Greatest Theft in Human History! The Banks and Government Are Stealing $3.5 Million From the Average Worker.
How the fractional reserve banking system, government taxation, and a manipulated inflation number combine to extract more than a full lifetime of earnings from every American workerHow the fractional reserve banking system, government taxation, and a manipulated inflation number combine to extract more than a full lifetime of earnings from every American worker — confirmed by four independent AI systems.By Etienne de la Boetie2Founder, Art of Liberty FoundationWith research assistance from Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s GPT – Full Analysis Available at ArtOfLiberty.org/InflationLet’s start with a number: $3,520,000.That is the amount the median American worker earning $60,000 per year will lose — over a 40-year career and 20-year retirement — to the fractional reserve banking system, government taxation, and Social Security benefit manipulation. Combined, these mechanisms extract 147% of gross lifetime earnings. More than you will ever earn. The system doesn’t just take your money — it takes money you haven’t earned yet, your purchasing power vs. an honest monetary system, and then rips you off in retirement by underpaying you what you are really owed in Social Security benefits.This is not a political opinion. It is not a conspiracy theory. It is an accounting — calculated independently by four separate AI systems using audited primary-source data from the FDIC, the Federal Reserve, the BLS, and the GAO. When Claude, Grok, Gemini, and GPT-5.2 all produce the same order of magnitude without coordination, the pattern is not noise. It’s signal.Today, the Art of Liberty Foundation is releasing The Greatest Theft in Human History — the most comprehensive public accounting of monetary extraction ever attempted. Here’s what we found.The Number That Should End the ConversationThe dollar has lost 97% of its purchasing power since the Federal Reserve was created in 1913. That’s not an estimate. That’s from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ own CPI Calculator.During that same period, the M2 money supply expanded approximately 1,380 times— from roughly $25 billion to $21.5 trillion. Real GDP grew approximately 100 times. The gap — 43 times more money than economic output — represents purchasing power transferred from everyone who holds dollars to those who created the new ones.Those new dollars were not created democratically. They were created by banks — private institutions that generate money by typing numbers into computers when making loans — and injected into the economy through a network of 24 “Primary Dealers” who get access to newly created money first, before prices adjust. By the time that money reaches your paycheck, prices have already risen.This is the Cantillon Effect: a 300-year-old observation that new money doesn’t enter the economy neutrally. It enriches those closest to its creation and impoverishes those furthest from it. In 2024, U.S. banks earned $268 billion in net income — confirmed by FDIC audited data. Over the full period since 1913, cumulative bank profits run to an estimated $15–25 trillion in today’s dollars.“Every dollar the banking system extracts is a dollar that, under honest money, would have gone to the person who earned it.”Your Missing MillionsHere is what the extraction looks like, by income level, over a 40-year career using the Fed’s own conservative 2% inflation target:Understanding the Cantillon Effect & The Compound TrapThe purchasing power that evaporates under inflation is only one aspect of the theft of fractional reserve banking. The system also extracts using the aforementioned Cantillon Effect where the banks (Primary Dealers) who receive the new money created out of thin air are able to capture the maximum purchasing power of that money which is reduced considerably once it reaches the average worker.Banks and their borrowers receive new money FIRST, before prices adjust. They buy at pre-inflation prices; workers receive wages last, at post-inflation prices. This is a directional wealth transfer, not neutral dilution. Think about the 500,000+ single-family homes that private equity has bought since 2012, driving up costs for everyone. The institutional single-family rental (SFR) industry is the Cantillon Effect made flesh — in the one asset class workers historically used to escape inflation.The Global Financial Crisis of 2008 produced roughly 3.8 million foreclosures by 2010, with 7+ million eventual foreclosures by 2014. Median home prices dropped 33%. The people losing those homes couldn’t get credit to buy them back because mortgage standards had tightened. The institutions that received the Fed’s QE money could.The key government catalyst: Fannie Mae’s REO-to-Rental Initiative (2012) allowed pre-qualified investors to bid on large portfolios of foreclosed properties at bulk auction — an arrangement that individual families physically could not participate in. The government sold foreclosed American homes in bulk to the exact institutions that had just received the Fed’s newly created money.By 2024, institutional investors owned approximately 450,000 single-family rental units (GAO-24-106643). The Philadelphia Fed documented that institutional investors raise rents 60% faster than individual landlords.The same cheap money that erodes your wages also inflates the assets you can’t afford to own — and the institutions that received that money first are now your landlord.The Compound TrapThe Compound Trap is the mechanism by which the inflation created by fractional reserve banking forces workers to borrow at interest — from the very institutions that created the inflation — to afford assets whose prices have been inflated by the money creation process itself. Examples:Housing: A home that cost $25,000 in 1971 costs $400,000+ today — not because the home is 16x better, but because the money supply expanded 1,380x while GDP grew only ~100x. The worker must borrow $320,000 at interest from a bank that created the money out of thin air. Over 30 years at 7%, they pay $446,000 in interest alone — more than the house. The bank risked nothing.Education: College tuition has risen 1,200% since 1980, far outpacing general inflation. Students borrow $37,000 on average (and often much more) to purchase credentials in a labor market that has not kept pace with credential inflation. The loans are made in bank-created money; the interest is real.Healthcare and Consumer Debt: Medical costs, auto loans, and credit card balances all compound the trap. Each dollar borrowed is a dollar that was created by the banking system, and each dollar of interest is a transfer from the worker to the bank that created the principal from nothing.The median worker at $60,000/year pays approximately $173,000 in compound trap costs over a 40-year career — in mortgage interest, student loan interest, and consumer debt interest — all on money that was created out of thin air. Under alternative inflation indexes (ShadowStats/Chapwood 7–10%), these figures multiply 3–5x.The Monopoly Government’s Confiscatory Taxes: $818,000 from the Median Worker Adds to the ExtractionFederal, state, and local governments extract approximately $818,000 from the median worker earning $60,000 over a 40-year career: $240,000 in federal income taxes, $367,000 in payroll taxes (the full economic burden, including the employer share that would otherwise be wages), and $211,000 in state and local taxes. For the $250K earner, the figure reaches $4.46 million. For the $1M earner, $19.7 million.The Honest Acknowledgment: You Received Some ServicesUnlike the fractional reserve banking extraction — where the wealth transfer produces no benefit whatsoever for the worker — government taxation does fund services that people use. Roads, courts, national defense, law enforcement, fire protection, public schools, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are real services delivered to real people. Our analysis does not pretend otherwise.But acknowledging that services exist is not the same as accepting that the price was fair, the delivery was efficient, or the arrangement was voluntary. Three structural problems make the tax extraction far more damaging than it appears:Problem 1: The Waste Is StaggeringThe GAO’s own auditors — not libertarian critics, but the government’s internal watchdog — estimated that the federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud alone (U.S. GAO, based on fiscal years 2018–2022). In FY 2024, agencies reported $162 billion in improper payments across 68 programs, with 84% being overpayments (U.S. GAO). Since FY 2003, cumulative improper payment estimates have totaled approximately $2.8 trillion (U.S. GAO) — and the GAO acknowledges this is a substantial undercount because many susceptible programs don’t report at all.In a scandal that came to be known as the Pentagon’s Bishops Fund scandal, the Department of Defense was caught buying fuel in bulk and then reselling it to the individual armed services at a cost significantly higher than if they services just bought fuel on the open market. They took the “profits” and put them into a slush fund. That means the federal government admits to losing roughly $162–$521 billion per year to waste, fraud, and improper payments. The median worker’s $240,000 in lifetime federal income taxes includes their proportional share of this waste: approximately $30,000–$80,000 over a career that went to payments the government itself says should never have been made.Problem 2: Monopoly PricingGovernment services operate as coercive monopolies — you pay whether you use them or not, and you cannot choose a competing provider. Economic theory and empirical evidence consistently show that monopoly providers charge more and deliver less than competitive alternatives.Private sector administrative overhead runs 5–17% depending on the industry; the federal government’s effective overhead — including compliance costs imposed on citizens and businesses — has been estimated at 20–35% when hidden regulatory burdens are included.A conservative estimate: if the services currently provided by government were delivered through competitive markets at private-sector efficiency levels, the cost savings would be 30–50% on the service-delivery components — representing roughly $250,000–$400,000 of the median worker’s lifetime tax burden that purchased bureaucratic overhead, waste, and monopoly pricing rather than actual services.Problem 3: The Seen and the UnseenThe most devastating cost of taxation is not what the government spent badly — it’s what the economy never produced. Every dollar extracted in taxes is a dollar that was not saved, invested, or spent by the person who earned it. The cumulative effect of removing $818,000 from the median worker’s lifetime economic activity — and trillions from the economy as a whole — is reduced capital formation, less entrepreneurship, fewer innovations, and slower productivity growth.Economists call this the “deadweight loss” of taxation — the economic activity that is destroyed, not merely transferred. Estimates of the deadweight loss range from $0.20 to $0.50 per dollar of tax revenue raised, meaning that for every dollar the government collects, an additional $0.20–$0.50 in economic value is destroyed in the process. Applied to the median worker’s $818,000 lifetime tax burden, this represents an additional $164,000–$409,000 in economic value that simply ceased to exist — jobs not created, businesses not started, innovations not pursued, and compounding growth never realized.Under a voluntaryist free-market alternative, the services people actually want — roads, dispute resolution, security, education, healthcare, retirement savings — would be provided by competing firms, mutual aid societies, and voluntary associations at market prices, with the discipline of consumer choice replacing the inertia of monopoly. Fraternal societies and mutual aid associations provided healthcare insurance, disability insurance, pensions, and other safety net services before they were crowded out by the monopoly “free” services mandated by “government.” The various organizations competed vigorously with each other to see who could provide better benefits at the most cost-effective prices. Historical examples are not hypothetical: private roads, private courts (arbitration handles more commercial disputes than government courts today), private schools (which educate at roughly 50–70% of the per-pupil cost of public schools), and fraternal societies that provided healthcare and life insurance to working-class Americans before government programs crowded them out in the mid-20th century.The $818,000 is not the price of civilization. It is the price of monopoly — and the monopolist has $2.8 trillion in admitted payment errors to show for it.The Government’s $190 Billion Incentive to Lie About the Actual Rate of Inflation to Steal Grandma’s Social SecurityThe BLS’s “official” inflation number drives Social Security COLAs, federal pension adjustments, military retirement, TIPS bond yields, and more. If that number is systematically low, the government saves money — at the direct expense of retirees and veterans.Our analysis — confirmed independently by all four AI models — finds that using real inflation rates (as measured by the ShadowStats SGS-Alternate or the Chapwood Index, both of which show 9–11%/yr versus the BLS’s 2–3%) would increase federal CPI-linked obligations by approximately $182–198 billion per year. Social Security alone accounts for roughly $112–115 billion of that gap.The mechanism is elegant in its dishonesty. The Social Security Act requires COLAs to be based on the CPI-W “as published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.” The law doesn’t specify how the BLS calculates it. So when the BLS introduced Owner’s Equivalent Rent (1983), geometric mean weighting (1999), hedonic adjustments, and substitution bias — each of which independently lowers measured inflation — it automatically reduced every COLA payment in the federal budget without a single Congressional vote.The compounding effect is devastating. A retiree who began collecting Social Security in 2004 receives approximately $2,032/month today under BLS-based COLAs. Under ShadowStats-level adjustments applied to the same starting benefit, they would receive approximately $4,500–5,000/month. The cumulative lifetime underpayment for a single retiree exceeds $200,000 — and the median worker retiring today will have a 20-year retirement COLA shortfall of approximately $810,000.The two numbers aren’t contradictory — they’re the same mechanism at two different scales. The $200,000 is a historical example anchored to a real retiree who started collecting in 2004 at the then-average benefit of $922/month. The $810,000 is a forward projection for today’s median worker retiring at roughly $2,100/month — more than double that baseline.Since the annual COLA shortfall is a percentage gap applied to the monthly benefit, a higher starting benefit produces a proportionally larger dollar shortfall every year. That shortfall then compounds geometrically over 20 years because each year’s understated COLA reduces the base from which the next year’s adjustment is calculated. Same theft, two different scales.How Many Years Did You Work For Free?Here is the clearest way to see the scale of the extraction. After a 40-year career and 20-year retirement, how many of those 60 years did you work just to cover the wealth transferred to the banking system, the government, and the CPI manipulation that reduces your retirement benefits?For the median worker at $60K, the combined extraction represents 42.8 years of labor — more than the entire 40-year career. The worker keeps only 27% of lifetime earnings.Every income level from $35K to $1M exceeds 40 years of extraction because of two dynamics:1. Under an honest monetary system like the historical gold standard where dollars can’t be created digitally or on a printing press, prices are benignly deflationary. The costs of the luxuries and necessities of life go DOWN each and every year 1-2% reflecting the innovations in better manufacturing, cheaper materials and more effective distribution. The average worker would be getting richer, the Cantillon Effect would be eliminated, and workers wouldn’t have to borrow (Or would borrow much LESS for houses, education, and healthcare)2. The SS COLA underpayment continues extracting value during retirement. The system doesn’t stop taking when you stop working. The government continues stealing from you by underpaying you what you are due from mandatory Cost-Of-Living-Adjustments by lying about what the REAL rate of inflation is.The extraction is most devastating for those who can least afford it. The $35K earner loses 17.7 years to SS COLA underpayment alone — 44% of lifetime earnings — while the $1M earner loses only 1.5 years to the same mechanism. The system is regressive by design.This Is Not AccidentalThe report documents five hallmarks of organized crime that sustain this extraction:Regulatory Capture: 304 revolving-door hires between the 20 largest U.S. banks and regulatory agencies, representing 2,256 cumulative years of public office (Cambridge University Press / Journal of Institutional Economics, 2019).Capture of the Economics Profession: The Federal Reserve spends hundreds of millions annually funding economists at universities, journals, and conferences. 84 of 190 editorial board members across top economics journals have Fed ties. The field cannot produce independent criticism of the institution funding it.Capture of Government: The FIRE sector has been the largest or second-largest source of federal campaign contributions in nearly every election cycle since 1990, totaling over $20 billion since tracking began — producing a 180:1 return on political investment. Industry executives cycle in and out of government at the highest levels.Capture of Academia: Compulsory schooling systems presents “government” as legitimate, desirable and necessary before kids are old enough to evaluate the logic and morality of the claim. The schools present the Federal Reserve as a neutral public institution, never teach that banks create money through lending, and never question or debate the legitimacy of the system.Monopolization of Media: Six corporations now control approximately 90% of what Americans see, hear, and read. The consolidation was financed with cheap debt from the very banking system being normalized. No major network has produced a serious investigative piece on fractional reserve banking as a mechanism of wealth transfer.What You Can Do Right NowFirst: verify it yourself. Open any AI model — Claude, Grok, Gemini, or ChatGPT — and ask it to calculate the lifetime cost of the fractional reserve banking system to a median worker at your income level. We have specific prompts in the report. You will get a number in the same range documented in this report. The directional transfer from wage-earners to money-creators is a consensus finding across every model tested.Second: share this report. It is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — reproduce and distribute freely with attribution. You can download the full PDF with hyperlinks at ArtOfLiberty.org/Inflation. You can buy printed copies at ArtOfLiberty.org/Store.Third: support the Art of Liberty Foundation! We are an independent organization with no government funding, no banking-sector advertising revenue, and no institutional dependencies. The work described in this report — and the investigative journalism that will follow — depends entirely on voluntary support. Become a sponsor at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor.“The magicians can only fool the audience until the audience understands the trick. That moment is now.”— Etienne de la Boetie², Art of Liberty FoundationArtOfLiberty.org · ArtOfLiberty.org/InflationReleased under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 — reproduce and distributeAbout The AuthorsEtienne de la Boetie² is the founder of the Art of Liberty Foundation and an internationally recognized expert and speaker on voluntaryism and government illegitimacy, criminality, and corruption. He is the author of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! – How Inter-Generational Organized Crime Runs the “Government,”Media and Academiaand To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many, and the editor of the Art of Liberty Daily News and Five Meme Friday, which delivers hard-hitting voluntaryist memes and the best of the alternative media. His original writing and research can be found at ArtOfLiberty.Foundation and, in Spanish, at ArteDeLaLibertad.org.About The Ai Co-Authors/ResearchersThis analysis was conducted with four independent AI models: Anthropic’s Claude (Sonnet), xAI’s Grok, Google’s Gemini, and OpenAI’s GPT. Each was prompted independently with identical data and methodology parameters. Their convergent results strengthen the findings by demonstrating that the extraction pattern is visible to any sufficiently capable analytical system, regardless of corporate ownership or training bias.Thursday Night, March 26th – Live Event in Memphis – Global Live StreamOn Thursday night Etienne will be breaking down The Greatest Theft in Human History. Who is behind it? How do they get away with it? What can we do about it?Get tickets at https://artofliberty.org/an-evening-with-etienne/ OR Get Tickets with a Sponsorship of the Art of Liberty Foundation + the New Version 5.5 of Etienne’s book: “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! + PerksArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor“Government” is and has been “The Biggest Scam in History” and it has enabled The Greatest Theft in Human History… There wouldn’t be fractional reserve banking, the Federal Reserve, the 1933 theft of the people’s gold, legal tender laws, or fiat currency without “government”
FiveMemeFri: They Are Going to Tell You Iran Did It…
+ Etienne is Streaming Globally on Thursday Night on The Greatest Theft in History! Etienne Note: If the images aren’t visible, please try this browser LINK.Dear Subscribers,This big story this week was our release of the NEW 5.5 Edition of my book: “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! The new version has updated content, memes, visualizations, and a new cover design. I am attaching a teaser copy of the 5th edition to this email for you to share with your family and friends.We released the new addition alongside a teaser for a new study that we are officially announcing and releasing this upcoming week. “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… has produced the greatest theft in history. A couple of weeks ago we released our research showing the unbelievable cost of fractional reserve banking on the average worker. We dug deeper and calculated the additional cost of confiscatory federal, state & local taxes AND the theft of Social Security (and pension!) benefits due to the organized crime “government” lying to retirees about the inflation rate, so they don’t have to pay mandated Cost-Of-Living-Adjustments (COLAs). I don’t want to steal our thunder from the announcement which we are making on Tuesday, but it has been the greatest theft in all of human history… by far! Stay Tuned!Finally, I am going to be giving a presentation on the findings of the report in Memphis, TN that will be streamed globally this Thursday, March 26th at 7:00 PM CST. If you have ever wanted to visit Memphis, the home of Elvis Presley, Beale Street/The Blues, FedEx and Grok, this is the week to come! You can get a copy of the new “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History.. Exposed! AND a ticket (live or streaming) AND Paid Access to ALL Five (5) Substacks by becoming a Sponsor of the Art of Liberty Foundation at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor.We are about to kick-off our 2026 sponsorship campaign to help us publicize our study on the theft of Fractional Reserve Banking. If you want to get a little payback and help expose the criminals who have robbed you for millions, we could use a couple of “heavy hitters” to help us anchor the campaign. Please email me at Etienne (at) ArtOfLiberty.org if you can help in a big way. We have some great perks to say THANK YOU! including a copy of the new 5.5 version of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! You can support the Art of Liberty Foundation as a annual sponsor at:ArtOfLiberty.org/SponsorTop Stories of the Week“Government” – The Biggest Scam in History – Version 5.5 Launches – 8,000 Hard Copies. 25 Countries. 40,000 Downloads.By Etienne de la Boetie² | Art of Liberty Foundation | March 2026There is a book that has been quietly doing something unusual in the liberty movement.It has sold over 8,000 hard copies to readers in 25+ countries.More than 40,000 ePubs and digital copies have been downloaded.It has been the best-selling book at over two dozen liberty-oriented conferences and events — outselling titles by authors with far larger platforms.Continue reading…Videos of the WeekNeighborhood Survival Strategy in Collapse/Depression: TimebankingEtienne Note: I have added this to the HUNDREDS of Prepping and Self-Sufficiency Resources we have in: The Liberator!by Reinette SenumEverything you need to start your own Time Bank, today, offline, with nothing but a notebook and your neighbors. Download the Time Bank Accounting Notebook PDF and print it out, along with this article, now. File it away in case the electrical grid or internet goes down.My webinar two nights ago, webinar blew the roof off, we hit our Zoom limit inside the first ten minutes, upgraded on the fly, and kept going for two full hours with people joining from across the country and as far as Australia. It was exactly the kind of evening that reminds me why I do this work.For everyone who was there: thank you. You are the early adopters, the Johnny Appleseeds. You are going to be the ones your neighbors come knocking on when things get tight. And they will.Continue reading…“Government”, Media and AcademiaCriminality ExposedThese articles also appears in “Government”, Media and Academia Criminality Exposed, A digest of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of articles exposing and suggesting inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “Government,” Media and Academia by the Art of Liberty Foundation. You can view the other articles or subscribe on Telegram: https://t.me/Government_ScamsThe Art of Liberty Foundation… in Spanish!We are adding a new section to Five Meme Friday to promote our new Substack, Telegram group, Instagram, and translations of To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many in Spanish. Please tell your Spanish speaking friends! “Go Paid” on our Spanish Substack to support getting voluntaryist ideas, books, and memes translated into Spanish AND get a free paperback copy of To See the Cage is To Leave It in Latin American Spanish.El gobierno es ilegítimo y criminal – El voluntarismo es la respuesta – Etienne en “The Peoples Reset”Derrick Broze (Introducción): Nuestro próximo presentador es un buen amigo mío que se ha dedicado a la organización de muchas maneras diferentes.Y cuando me siento aquí y pienso en todo lo que hemos hecho a lo largo de los años, desde las pancartas gigantes desplegadas por Filadelfia que decían a la gente que el gobierno tenía el crimen organizado y cosas por el estilo, ha sido realmente hermoso.También es autor y presentador.Él organiza la conferencia Liberty on the Rocks – Sedona – The Voluntaryism Conference , que tuvo lugar en Sedona hace un par de meses, además de muchas otras iniciativas importantes. Hoy nos hablará sobre el gobierno, qué es y si es necesario o no. Así que, por favor, ¡denle un fuerte aplauso a Etienne de la Boétie-Squared!Etienne de la Boetie2: Mi nombre es Etienne De La Boétie2 . Soy el fundador de la Fundación El Arte de la Libertad . Somos una organización emergente de políticas públicas que expone la ilegitimidad y la criminalidad del gobierno desde una perspectiva voluntarista basada en principios. Si no sabes qué es un voluntarista, te lo voy a explicar.Continuar leyendo…You can see this talk in English Here: “Daily News of The Week”Condition 1984: Flock AI Cameras Surveilling U.S.by Andrew MullerFrom Los Angeles to New York, from the deep South to Midwest suburbs, more than 80,000 AI-powered cameras are actively surveilling nearly every American as they commute to work, walk their dogs, and drive to church. The company behind it, Flock Safety, is claiming to fight — and even prevent — crime, but the reality is more sinister.Flock and companies like it are building the foundation for a surveillance state that would make George Orwell blush. They are accomplishing this by installing high-tech AI cameras on every street corner, positioning them in every neighborhood, and even launching AI eyes in the sky through a drone network.The company, founded in 2017 with an evaluated value of $7.5 billion, exists to aid law enforcement and “stay ahead” of any threat “big or small.” More than 5,000 law-enforcement agencies use the tech in 49 states (Alaska being the outlier), according to Flock’s website, which it boasts represents the “largest public-private” surveillance network.Garret Langley, Flock CEO and co-founder, says the company’s objective is to eliminate crime — all crime. In an interview with Forbes, Langley explained that Flock’s “full mission is that we genuinely don’t think that crime should exist…. We think that with technology, with people, with policy, crime can be a thing of the past.” In other words, with enough spyware and surveillance, every movement can be monitored.Continue reading…BREAKING STUDY: COVID-19 “Vaccination” Linked to 6,800% Higher Odds of Debilitating Autoimmune Muscle Diseaseby Nicolas Hulscher, MPHA new study titled “Association Between COVID-19 Vaccination and Polymyalgia Rheumatica: A Review and Case Series Report” reports a powerful safety signal linking COVID-19 vaccination to polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR)—a debilitating autoimmune inflammatory disorder characterized by severe muscle pain and systemic inflammation.The paper was authored by Dr. Erik Nilssen, Dr. James Thorp, Claire Rogers, Kirstin Cosgrove, Dr. Steven Hatfill, Dr. Drew Pinsky, Dr. Kelly Victory, Dr. Alejandro Diaz-Villalobos, Nicolas Hulscher (myself), and Dr. Peter A. McCullough.In our analysis, we examined reports from the CDC/FDA Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) and detected a striking disproportionate increase in PMR cases following COVID-19 vaccination compared with other vaccines. We also report three clinical cases of polymyalgia rheumatica observed in recent medical practice following COVID-19 vaccination or spike protein exposure.Polymyalgia rheumatica primarily affects adults over age 50 and can leave patients with crippling shoulder, neck, and hip pain, profound morning stiffness, fatigue, and elevated inflammatory markers. Many patients require long-term corticosteroid therapy to control symptoms.Continue reading…A surprising percentage of produce from the nation’s largest supplier contains ‘forever’ pesticidesby Sandee LaMotteNearly 40% of nonorganic fruits and vegetables grown in California contain traces of pesticides that are also PFAS, or “forever chemicals,” according to a new investigation.California supplies nearly half of the vegetables and more than three-quarters of the fruits and nuts eaten in the United States.Perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are called “forever chemicals” because their strong carbon to fluoride molecular bonds can take years to decades — even centuries— to completely break down in the environment. It’s estimated there are nearly 15,000 types of fluorinated chemicals, or PFAS, in existence today.“The PFAS pesticide is the active ingredient in these products because it’s effective at killing things — which is the very reason why it’s so concerning to public health and the environment at large,” said Bernadette Del Chiaro, senior vice president for California operations for the Environmental Working Group, or EWG, a health advocacy organization that produced the report published Wednesday.Continue reading…Inside the Bohemian Grove’s Alleged Member List of Elite Men Exposed in New Searchable Databaseby NY Post and More Perfect UnionBohemian Grove is a fraternity of Northern California elites that only allows men as members. A roster purporting to show the Bohemian Grove’s shadowy membership list, uncovered by investigative journalist Dan Boguslaw, reveals more than 2,000 business executives, entertainers, government officials and wealthy individuals separated into “camps” with cryptic names like “Rough ‘n Ready,” “Pink Onion,” and “Lost Angels.”In the short documentary, the researcher from the liberal More Perfect Union said that Trump tried to become a member, but was shut out. He explained how the connected elites took power over the Trump administration despite rejecting him.LINK FOR THE FULL LIST HEREFrom Grok: “The leaked 2023 Bohemian Grove attendee list includes Paul Pelosi (venture capitalist, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi) and Michael Bloomberg (former NYC mayor with Democratic roots). Historically, the club has leaned heavily Republican (e.g., Reagan, Nixon regulars), but it’s never been strictly one-party—Democrat-linked figures like Chris Matthews have also spoken there. It’s an elite networking spot open to influential men across affiliations.”Continue reading…56% Of Americans Now Suspect COVID-19 ‘Vaccines’ Caused Mass-Deathsby Nicholas Hulscher and Lindell TVRasmussen Reports performed a credible, nationally representative poll that confirms most Americans [56%] believe COVID-19 shots have killed many people, and they want accountability from the CDC and government health leaders. This shows that what was once called a “conspiracy theory” has become the mainstream view. The majority of Americans now believe vaccine harms are real and widespread.Partisan divides remain—70% of Republicans, 46% of Democrats, and 54% of independents think the vaccines likely caused deaths—but the skepticism crosses party lines and racial groups.“OVER HALF OF AMERICANS NOW BELIEVE THE COVID VACCINES CAUSED MASS DEATHS.”Nicholas Hulscher, an epidemiologist with the McCullough Fundm was interviewed about what he calls a growing global crisis of vaccine injuries. “The tide is turning,” Hulscher said.Continue reading…‘A Giant Problem’: Experts Address ‘Massive Epidemic of Vaccine Injury’by Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.The DefenderThis article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website.The U.S. must address the “massive epidemic of vaccine injury,” according to scientists, doctors, lawyers and medical freedom activists who spoke today in Washington, D.C., at a roundtable hosted by the MAHA Institute.MAHA Institute President Mark Gorton told The Defender that the massive epidemic of vaccine injury — MEVI, for short — is a “giant problem.”“I want people to understand that vaccine injuries are common and they’re all around, and vaccine injuries dwarf the benefits of vaccines,” Gorton said.Continue reading…Historic heat dome to roast 14 US states with triple-digit temperatures months ahead of scheduleby CHRIS MELORE, US ASSISTANT SCIENCE EDITORA record-shattering heatwave is set to scorch millions across the Southwest, sending temperatures over 100 degrees three months before the US reaches summer.The shocking forecast has been triggered by a massive ‘heat dome’ forming over 14 states, including California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming.Parts of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas will also be affected, with meteorologists from AccuWeather warning that temperatures throughout the week will be 15 to 30 degrees above average for mid-March.A heat dome works like a lid of high pressure. It builds overhead, trapping hot air at the surface level, suppressing clouds and intensifying sunlight.Continue reading…Switzerland Enshrines Cash in Federal Constitution, but Critics Say It Doesn’t Go Far Enoughby Peter RykowskiIn a nationwide referendum on Sunday, Swiss voters enshrined cash in the country’s federal constitution — but critics, who supported a more extensive proposal, argue that the constitutional amendment does not go far enough in preventing a central bank digital currency.Voters on Sunday decided on multiple national referendums, as well as elections and referendums at the cantonal and local levels. Among these were two competing proposals to enshrine cash in the Swiss Federal Constitution. The original proposal, a popular initiative spearheaded by the Swiss Freedom Movement (FBS) titled “Yes to an independent, free Swiss currency with coins or banknotes (cash is freedom),” would have amended the Constitution to declare:The Federal Government shall ensure that coins or banknotes are always available in sufficient quantities.The replacement of the Swiss franc with another currency must be submitted to a vote by the people and the cantons.Continue reading…Trump Says He Can Do ‘Anything I Want’ With Cubaby Daniel TrottaU.S. President Donald Trump escalated his rhetoric against Cuba on Monday, saying he expected to have the “honor” of “taking Cuba in some form” and that “I can do anything I want” with the neighboring country.The threatening statements come even as Cuba and the United States have opened talks aimed at improving their largely adverse relations, which have reached one of their most contentious moments in the 67 years since Fidel Castro overthrew what had been a close U.S. ally.“I do believe I’ll be … having the honor of taking Cuba. That’s a big honor. Taking Cuba in some form,” Trump told reporters as the island faces an unprecedented economic crisis, exacerbated by an oil blockade the U.S. imposed after capturing former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.“I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth,” Trump told reporters at a signing event in the Oval Office.After Trump spoke, the New York Times reported that removing Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel from office is a key U.S. objective in the bilateral talks. Citing four people familiar with the talks, the Times said the Americans have signaled to Cuban negotiators that Diaz-Canel must go but are leaving the next steps up to the Cubans.Continue reading…Breaking: Federal Court Blocks ACIP Meeting, Changes to Childhood Vaccine Scheduleby Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D.The DefenderThis article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website.A federal court in Boston today blocked a key government vaccine advisory committee from holding its scheduled meeting this week, and paused changes the committee made to vaccine recommendations under U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy.In a win for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and several other medical organizations, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine policy, will not meet as planned this week.HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told The Defender in a statement that it “looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”Continue reading…Counterterrorism Director Joe Kent Resignsby John LeakeJoe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, just resigned, stating his reasons in the following letterAs part of the Art of Liberty Foundation’s Tribute to Nobel Laureate F.A. Hayek, in cooperation with the Mises Institute and the US Justice Charitable Foundation who provided free copies, the Art of Liberty Foundation is helping promote and distribute the book to anyone who “Goes Paid” as an annual member on Substack OR makes a purchase at ArtOfLiberty.org/Store.Go paid at the $5 a month level, and we will send you both the PDF and e-Pub versions of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many, the PDF of Hayek for the 21st Century and a coupon code for 10% off anything in the https://artofliberty.org/store/.Continue reading…Amazon overtakes US Postal Service as largest parcel carrierby Eric KulischAmazon passed the U.S. Postal Service as the largest domestic parcel carrier in 2025, anchoring a broader market shift away from traditional couriers, as it in-sourced a large amount of last-mile delivery work previously handled by UPS, according to data published Monday by ShipMatrix Inc.Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) handled 6.7 billion parcels last year, up 9.8% year over year, compared to an 8.3% decline for the U.S. Postal Service to 6.6 billion pieces. UPS (NYSE: UPS) also experienced an 8.3% volume decline at 4.4 billion deliveries. FedEx (NYSE: FDX) delivered 3.6 billion parcels in 2025, up 5.9%. Amazon’s parcel growth isn’t just fueled by its own online orders, but new contracts from third parties that don’t sell on the retailer’s platform.Overall, industry volume was essentially flat (+0.4%) at 23.9 billion packages. Volumes for alternative carriers grew 13% to 2.6 billion units, highlighting a continued market shift to logistics services from online retailers like Walmart and Target, and low-cost start-ups and other independent carriers such as UniUni, Veho, Gofo, Jitsu, SpeedX, OnTrac and Better Trucks, said ShipMatrix, a provider of carrier benchmarking software for parcel shippers.UPS and FedEx are making a strategic retreat from commodity last-mile delivery — short-distance transport of lightweight merchandise from e-commerce fulfillment centers to residential addresses — to focus on B2B logistics and high-value e-commerce shipments where they can command a premium for complex services. The companies have made clear that low rewards from local courier service don’t cover the high-cost structure associated with operating global integrated express delivery networks. Instead, they are consolidating ground shipping centers and reducing capital investments to focus on shipments that are heavier, cross multiple shipping zones, and in high-density routes that generate higher revenue per parcel.Continue reading…Details Of Fire On US Navy’s Largest Carrier Much Worse Than Previously Knownby Tyler DurdenThere was chaos aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford after a major onboard fire knocked out a big swathe of living quarters, leaving hundreds of US sailors without beds in the middle of a live war deployment, in what marks a much bigger incident than what the Pentagon previously disclosedThe fire occurred last week, raising immediate questions of whether it was hit by an Iranian drone or missile attack, as Tehran has claimed, amid Pentagon insistence that it was none of these – but just an accidental fire.Already the crew and ship are strained to their limits, given the carrier is on its way to achieving a record deployment, entering ten months. The crew has reportedly been informed that they will be deployed into May, which would make an entire year at sea, after the prior Caribbean deployment focused on the Venezuela anti-Maduro operation.The NY Times says this marks twice the length of a normal carrier deployment – one wrought with extreme difficulties and a major emergency, as the report details:Continue reading…Things Go Haywire as Israeli Escalation Throws Iran Conflict into Dangerous New Phaseby SimpliciusThings really hit the fan earlier today after Iran’s largest natural gas field, the South Pars, was struck by Israel. This field reportedly accounts for 75% of Iran’s natural gas production and 80-85% of its electric grid.This of course came directly after Israel had assassinated Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Council Ali Larijani in a strike that was said to have also killed upwards of 100+ civilians in the vicinity, as it leveled the apartment block he was in, and possibly even surrounding buildings.This led to Iran immediately escalating with strikes against energy targets in both Israel and the Gulf, particularly hitting Qatar’s Ras Laffan gas hub said to be the world’s largest:The strike was successful and was said to have done massive damage to the facility, which some experts are writing is irreparable.Continue reading…Qatar Expels Iranian Diplomats After Strike On LNG Hub; Israel Attacks Iran’s Navy In Caspian Seaby Tyler DurdenIsrael strikes Iran Navy in Caspian Sea. Iran FM Discusses Strait of Hormuz with EU’s Kallas, oil dumps, amid reports of Iran launches on KSA. Largest Qatar LNG export hub hit by Iranian missiles. Doha expels diplomats.Some Gulf states want to ensure Iran’s missile arsenal destroyed for good, as EU, Russia, China demand ceasefire; Beijing ignores Trump’s Hormuz pleaIsrael says Iran’s intelligence chief Esmail Khatib was eliminated overnight as pace of top leadership killings accelerates.Iran says upstream oil and gas assets are under attack for first time since war began, readies retaliatory action against oil/gas assets in Gulf area, including Qatar, Saudi Arabia, & UAE; Iraq reroutes some flows through Ceyhan Pipeline to TurkeyContinue reading…The Hormuz Humiliation: Iran’s Mine Warfare vs Washington’s ‘NO PLAN’ Disasterby 21st Century WireFreddie Ponton“We have lost control of the seas to a nation without a navy, using pre-World War I weapons, laid by vessels that were utilized at the time of the birth of Christ.”Rear Admiral Allan E. Smith, who wrote these words, learned this the hard way at Wonsan Harbour in 1950, when he realised the US Navy could lose control of the seas not to enemy fleets, but to thousands of cheap mines scattered from wooden fishing boats. Seventy-six years later, the same trap is snapping shut in the Strait of Hormuz.The Islamic Republic of Iran Navy (IRIN), the blue-water force built for conventional combat, has been pummeled by American and Israeli strikes, although its submarine fleet remains viable. But that was never the force that mattered. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy (IRGCN), the asymmetric warfare specialists, remain intact, lethal, and purpose-built for exactly this confrontation. They do not seek to control the sea. They seek to deny it through swarming fast boats, drones, mini-submarines, coastal defenses, and the weapon that could easily neutralise the trillion-dollar carrier groups for the price of a used sedan: the naval mine.What follows is an anatomy of strategic failure which disects how the United States launched an illegal war against Iran without a coherent objective, how the Pentagon’s $800 billion annual budget produced “NO PLAN” for the scenario its own intelligence warned was “100% foreseeable,” and how a few thousand naval mines, descendants of the same devices that bled the British Navy at Gallipoli and stalled MacArthur’s landing craft at Wonsan, have brought twenty percent of global oil shipments to the edge of paralysis.Continue reading…Decentralizing Defense: A $96 Guided Rocket Just Put Precision Warfare into the Hands of the Peopleby Matt AgoristIn a world where the State spends trillions of dollars on bloated defense contracts to build “smart” weapons that often end up incinerating wedding parties or schools in the Middle East, a single individual with a 3D printer and $96 just shattered the monopoly on high-tech violence. A video, along with the plans, has recently surfaced showcasing “Project Canard,” an open-source, 3D-printed guided rocket system that recalculates its trajectory mid-air using a $5 sensor and some piano wire. The creator, operating under the GitHub handle novatic14, has essentially handed the keys to advanced surface-to-air defense to anyone with an internet connection and a spool of plastic filament.Continue reading…People Are Calling Meta Ray-Bans “Pervert Glasses”by Al Jazeera StaffThe United States-Israeli war on Iran is estimated to have cost Washington $3.7bn so far in its first 100 hours alone, or nearly $900m a day, driven largely by the huge expenditure of munitions, according to new research.An analysis by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) underlined the colossal cost of the war, which entered its seventh day on Friday, as the US attacks Iran with stealth bombers and advanced weapons systems.list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4US says Iran missile attacks down 90% after strikes from B-2 bombersContinue reading…Greg Reese: An End of Empire (5 Minute Video)by Greg ReeseDespite having the world’s most powerful navy, the United States cannot force the Strait of Hormuz open, which every US military expert knew would be closed if Iran was attacked. This is why the US Navy is miles away. And it is why America’s NATO Allies are refusing to participate.The Iranians may have suffered the brutal Shock & Awe of the United States military, but they have been preparing for decades, and as the US is already running low on weapons, Iran has plans for a long term asymmetrical war, a defensive fight for their very existence. Iran has the moral high ground and they are holding practically all the cards.By his own admission, Trump expected a quick, decisive victory. He ignored warnings from experts, and instead, listened to his son-in-law Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.Continue reading…US national debt breaches $39 trillion milestone for first time amid spending surgeBy Eric RevellRep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, explains how Fed Chair pick Kevin Warsh will restore integrity in the Federal Reserve on The Bottom Line.The U.S. national debt reached another historic milestone on Wednesday as it surpassed $39 trillion for the first time as the federal government’s persistent budget deficits send the debt soaring higher.New data from the Treasury Department released on Wednesday showed that the gross national debt reached $39,016,762,910,245.14 as of March 17.The $39 trillion milestone comes about five months after the national debt reached $38 trillion for the first time in late October 2025, which closely followed the $37 trillion milestone being surpassed just two months earlier in mid-August.Continue reading…How Musk is using Starlink to reshape the worldEtienne Note: Starlink is obviously a US Military communications system being used to help favored regimes and US-sponsored opposition groups in targeted countries while being sold to the public to subsidize the cost and privatize the profits to defense industry insiders who knew and understood the plan beforehand.by Ed Cumming. Eric WilliamsThe volatile, fast-moving US-Israeli attack on Iran has a very different character from the grinding war in Ukraine. From both conflicts, however, one development is increasingly clear: Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite internet system, has become the most important strategic business on Earth.And Musk, who owns approximately 40 per cent of Starlink’s parent company, SpaceX, and controls 80 per cent of the voting rights, holds a level of geopolitical influence unprecedented for a corporate figure.“There is no real parallel [to Starlink],” says Alp Toker, director of NetBlocks, an independent global internet monitor. “There is probably no equivalent in modern history. You could argue people are equally dependent on AWS [Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing company] but it doesn’t have the same political aspect.”After months of slow Russian advances, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, announced on Sunday that Ukraine had regained 168 square miles and thwarted a planned Russian offensive. “The spring campaign, as it had been planned, drowned in this spring for the Russians; they were unable to advance,” Zelensky told reporters.Continue reading…Damning study of over a million kids finds myocarditis only in the vaccinatedby Joseph MacKinnoniden administration officials and so-called experts characterized COVID-19 vaccines as “safe and effective” during the pandemic. In the face of an avalanche of tragic evidence to the contrary, the powers that be waged costly and unsuccessful propaganda and censorship campaigns to cure Americans’ skepticism.Although the Trump administration has alternatively acknowledged the risks and fallout associated with the vaccines — the Food and Drug Administration admitting, for instance, that the vaccines killed numerous children — a coalition of medical organizations is fighting to legally force the government to keep recommending the COVID jabs to healthy kids and pregnant women.That legal effort appears especially questionable given the finding in a recent study that children spared from the vaccine also appear to have been spared from an unfortunate health complication.Pericarditis and myocarditis appear to have been problems visited solely upon vaccinated kids.Continue reading…Kent Tells Tucker: ‘Imminent Threat’ Was From Israel, Not Iran; Ordered To Halt Charlie Kirk Investigationby Tyler DurdenJoe Kent, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center who was President Trump’s principal counterterrorism advisor, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show to explain his side of the story after stepping down from the administration.Kent announced his resignation Tuesday, citing his opposition to the ongoing U.S. war with Iran, and his belief that Iran posed “no imminent threat” to America – while asserting in his resignation letter that his wife died in “a war manufactured by Israel” in a 2019 suicide bombing in Manjbi, Syria.In this first public interview since resigning, Kent elaborated on his reasons amid reports emerging Wednesday that the FBI is investigating him for allegedly leaking or improperly sharing classified information (a probe that sources say predates his resignation and is being handled by the FBI’s Criminal Division, per several outlets).Early on in the interview, Carlson referenced Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s justification for the strikes – that Iran posed an imminent threat because Israel was preparing to attack Iranian targets, likely prompting Iranian retaliation against U.S. forces. Carlson reframed it bluntly:Continue reading…Upcoming Liberty EventsAn Evening with Etienne de la Boetie2 – Memphis, TN & Online – Get either a live or streaming ticket with sponsorship of the Art of Liberty Foundation at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor OR ala carte tickets at ArtOfLiberty.org/StoreGreat Homeschool Convention – Ohio, Cincinnati, OH, US, April 9th – 11th, 2026Red Pill Friends April Tour ‘26, Black Mountain, NC; Bon Aqua, TN; Memphis, TN; Tulsa, OK & Bandera, TX, US, April 16th – 28th, 2026California’s Decline: A Warning to America, San Diego, CA, US, April 25th, 2026LibertyCon Europe, Madrid, Spain, April 24th – 26th, 2026The People vs Poison, Washington, D.C., US, April 27th, 2026Mid-Continent Liberty Festival, Spavinaw, OK, US, April 29th – May 4th, 2026Buenos Aires Anarchist Film Festival, Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 1st – 3rd, 2026Upstate Anarchist Book Fair, Binghamton, NY, US, May 2nd – 3rd, 2026Constellation Anarchist Festival, Montreal, Canada, May 14th – 20th, 202654th Annual Rainbow Gathering, Northern California, US, July 1st – 7th, 2026Midwest Peace & Liberty Fest, Lake Satoshi, MI, US, August 6th – 9th, 2026Liberty International World Conference, Kathmandu, Nepal, August 7th – 9th, 2026Northeast Unschooling Conference, Pittsfield, MA, US, August 15th – 18th, 2026International Conference for Anarchist Studies, Manchester, UK, August 26th – 28th, 2026Free Cities Conference, Roatan, Honduras, September 3rd – 6th, 2026VonuFest, Illinois, US, September 21st – 28th, 2026AnarCon, Gore, VA, US, September 25th – 27th, 2026An Evening with Etienne de la Boetie2 – Memphis, TN & Online – Get either a live or streaming ticket with sponsorship of the Art of Liberty Foundation at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor OR ala carte tickets at ArtOfLiberty.org/StoreMemes BonanzaArtOfLiberty.org/white-roseTruth Music of the WeekAll the Love in the World (lyric video) – MC YOGIWhen your paths unclearAnd the night’s shadows drawing nearWhen your mind is clouded with fearCan’t see the roadDon’t know which way to steerPlease remember that you’re not alone.We’re all on this journey homeAll of us, everyone that you knowWe’re sending you all the love in the world.All the love, all the love, all the love in the worldAll the love, all the love, all the love in the worldAll the love, all the love, all the love in the worldAll the love, all the love, all the love in the worldAll the love in the worldAll the love in the worldAll the love in the worldDon’t be afraid it will be okayLove will always find a wayDon’t be afraid it will be okayLove will always find a wayWhen the time comes for us to goPlease know that you’re not aloneEven as the tears fall down from our eyesFor you and me there are no good byesSo be Be brave Love.You are strong.We all must make our journey homeMay the angels guide your every turnWe’re sending you, all the love in the worldlibertarian Intentional Community RoundupProspera Launches Lump Sum Tax Program for Digital NomadsEtienne Note: This article is being syndicated as part of a recurring column in our weekly newsletter Five Meme Friday: libertarian Intentional Community Roundup where we cover libertarian and voluntaryist intentional communities and free private cities including Prospera (Honduras), The Free State Project (New Hampshire), Liberstad (Norway), Montelibero (Montenegro), Los Propietarios, (Argentina), Liberland (Croatia/Serbia border), Network States in general and Sea Steading (The Oceans). I am also covering secession movements including Greater Idaho,Please send details of any new happenings, projects or projects I am missing!by The Prosperity PressFor globally mobile professionals who’ve legally exited their home country’s tax system, finding legitimate tax residency that fits how they actually live is genuinely hard. Próspera’s new Lump-Sum Tax Program was built for exactly that gap: a flat $5,000/year covering all income taxes under Próspera’s Tax Statute, with an officially issued Tax Residency Certificate backed by a real legal framework.The program is designed for people who are already tax-compliant and need a clear, stable residency structure. U.S. citizens are excluded given citizenship-based taxation rules, and participants must establish a business entity in Próspera’s registry and complete a minimum seven-day annual visit, adding real economic substance to their residency. Comparable programs globally start at $25,000–$100,000+, so the accessibility is notable, but the foundation is the same: transparency and legal clarity. Learn more at nomadlayer.comContinue reading…The State of the Free State by Director Eric BrakeyFilmed at last week’s Liberty Forum, FSP Director Eric Brakey breaks down the successesMonday, March 23rd – Free State Project MoneybombToday only — 100% of every donation received at FSP.org/give will fund our marketing plan for the upcoming months.Every gift — $25, $100, $250 or $1,000 — puts us directly in front of liberty-minded people who are ready for something better — and invites them to connect, visit, and move.All moneybomb donations are appreciated, tax-deductible, and count toward Porcupine Patron status.The LiberatorGet a NEW 2026 Liberator for “Going Paid” (or upgrading from monthly) as a $50 Yearly Subscriber to This Substack.We just announced the BRAND NEW 2026 Liberator (Version 2.3), which includes the ePub versions of “Government” – The Biggest Scams in History Exposed! 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Please feel free to forward this email to friends and colleagues.Sincerely,Etienne de la Boetie2Executive Director,The Art of Liberty FoundationAuthor of: To See the Cage is to Leave It & “Government” The Biggest Scam in History … Exposed!!Five Meme Friday is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.








