When This All Blows Up: The Next Economic Crash

April 11, 2017

Contributor

Editor's Note: The following is a guest post by Chris Martenson with PeakProsperity.com.

This report marks the end of a series of three big trains of thought. The first explained how we’re living through the Mother Of All Financial Bubbles. The next detailed the Great Wealth Transfer that is now underway, siphoning our wealth into the pockets of an elite few.

This concluding report predicts how these deleterious and unsustainable trends will inevitably ‘resolve’ (which is a pleasant way of saying ‘blow up’.)

The Ka-POOM Theory

In terms how this will all end, we favor the scenario put forth by Eric Janszen in 1998 called the Ka-POOM theory.

This theory rests on the belief that the Federal Reserve along with the other world central banks looked at Japan's several decades of economic stagnation and decided that deflationary recessions are to be avoided at all costs -- even if that means blowing asset bubbles and then cleaning up the destruction left behind in their aftermath.

Because the Fed, et al. have a limited playbook (which is: print, and then print some more), the Ka-POOM model calls for limited periods of disinflation, followed by massive money printing sprees that then produce high inflation.

Despite the trillions and trillions in thin-air money printed by the world's central banks over the past 8 years, a common rebuttal we hear is “But there’s been no inflation so far!” To which I reply, “Yes, that’s what we're being told. But that's not actually true.”

Remember: inflation is simply “too much money chasing too few goods.” We can detect today's excess of money in the rising prices in our cost of living -- but those higher prices are symptoms, not causes. Inflation is not "higher prices". Inflation is "too much money".

Next, inflation is not an evenly-distributed event. It’s not like the price of everything rises 10% at the same time. The inflation rate is an average, which contains some prices going up, while others stay flat or even go down going down. It’s always a lumpy experience. The reason why is that money is not evenly distributed across the economy, and it doesn't always chase (or desire) the same things.

So the Fed and other central banks have printed up trillions and trillions of dollars, euros and yen, which they then essentially handed over to the financial markets and the very few people who work within them (as well as their biggest clients). As a direct consequence, we’ve seen enormous inflation in the prices of things that relate to that tiny universe of people – stocks, bonds, trophy city apartments, Gulfstream 5 jets, fine art, and rare gems.

These items have all gotten massively more expensive over the past decade. Just as would have happened if the Fed had printed up a trillion dollars and given them everyone living in a trailer park in the American South, with the restriction that the money could only be used to buy other trailers in the region. Do you have any doubt that the price of trailers in the South wouldn't explode upwards?

Well, that’s exactly analogous to what has happened to financial and trophy assets. The amount of money created and poured into the financial markets by that central banks has been incredibly enormous. As a first-order event, it raised the prices of nearly all financial assets. And then, as a second-order derivative, it then flowed into the properties and cherished possessions of the financial industry insiders.

The summary is that we’ve already had lots of inflation – but it has (so far) been mostly contained to the areas where the freshly-printed money was first directed. No surprise there.

But it's certainly not only been limited to the rarified items the rich enjoy. Anyone who is currently looking to purchase a home, car or college education has a pretty good idea how prices have jumped substantially over the past decade.

Here’s the thing about the attempts by central banks to circumvent the workings of the actual economy by simply printing up money: It is doomed to fail. It always does; one cannot simply 'print up' prosperity. Printing up money merely creates the illusion of free wealth for those with first access to it. In reality, what happens is that it secretly transfers the wealth from everyone else to those lucky few.

The Fed and the rest of the central banking cartel are consciously and very pointedly picking winners and losers.

It’s not in their power to make everyone a winner. So they have decided to throwing granny (and savers and pensions) under the bus while financial elites and well-connected speculators (e.g. JP Morgan and other large banks) extremely wealthy in the process. Wealth is being transferred from Parties B-Z to Party A – from the many to the few.

What the Fed promised would happen along with all of this money printing has not materialized. There has been no return to rapid economic growth. And there won't be, because we have massive structural problems in our economy that can't be papered over forever.

This stark fact makes the Fed's entire money printing misadventure not just pointless, but dangerously destabilizing from a social and political perspective. The world's central banks, especially the Fed, have done an enormous amount of damage. These institutions, as well as the decision-makers within them, are going to have a heck of lot to answer for when the inevitable crack-up comes.

A Quick Re-Cap

And so here we find ourselves, at the final torturous, grinding part where the final bubble top is formed. The über-bubble. The Greatest Of Them All.

A bubble this spectacular requires a top worthy of its size. A long, massive top, full of increasing exuberance -- until the very last investor is sucked in.

Where I’ve noted humans’ remarkably silly behavior during bubble episodes in the past – tulip bulbs, railroads, swampland - I still struggle to understand or even explain this one.

It’s so obvious at this point. And yet, like its brethren bubbles of the past, a lot of otherwise thoughtful and careful people are getting sucked in by its siren song.

I guess the best economic description of it might be “a credit bubble” with sub-components like sovereign and household debt, and sub-sub-components like Toronto real estate and the IPO price for SNAP shares (that’s Snapchat, which soon after its launch, had a valuation of $40 billion. This mind you, is a company that has no identifiable revenue model).

A credit bubble occurs when the issuance of credit grows faster than income supporting it. Here’s what that looks like on a national scale for the US. The bottom red line is income (GDP) and the top blue line is Total Debt. We can see that debt has been growing at twice the rate of GDP since 1970:

You have to be quite delusional to think that debt can be compound at twice the rate of income forever. Unfortunately, there are more than a few of those ungrounded optimists working in central banks and governments the world over. Their thinking is simply, The sky’s the limit!

Those of us living in reality find this mindset puerile and insulting. And, of course, dangerously reckless. And it’s also maddening to hear the media cheerleaders for Wall Street selling us this bunk as if it were somehow sensible. It is not.

Look, millions -- likely billions -- of people are at risk of getting badly hurt. When this bubble blows, it’s going to be enormously destructive and take out a lot of wealth along the way. Millions of jobs will be destroyed. What people think of as wealth will evaporate as though it never existed in the first place (it didn’t). Political dynasties and major financial institutions will be ruined.

As I wrote recently, this will be widely and popularly referred to a period of wealth destruction. It will feel that way to must, but it will be actually be a period of wealth transfer:

The summary here is this: We are still printing and borrowing enormous amounts of money and credit, but the world is not growing any larger in response. The pressure is building. Nobody knows when all of that money and credit will have to be 'trued up' against the amount of real stuff out there. But it will. History shows us that it always does.
And that moment will be referred to by most as a period of wealth destruction. 401ks will be shredded, bonds will become worthless, defaults will spike, institutions and entire countries will fail - but the truth is that all of that paper 'wealth' was an illusion. People's faith in it had been betrayed long before, when those in power started abusing the system by creating too many tertiary claims.
After the dust settles, there will be winners and losers, and those with the proper framework will understand that what actually happened was that all of the wealth was transferred from those who thought they owned it, to those who actually did.
The biggest remaining question is whether the wealth transfer comes about in the form of an inflationary destruction, like in Venezuela today, or as a deflationary bust more in the fashion of Greece.

The only thing that capable of preventing this coming carnage would a resumption of rapid economic growth. And I mean growth that exceeds the rate of debt creation.

But that's simply not going to happen.

The Problem With Growth

We can dispense with the idea of “solving” our too-much-debt problem by a resumption of rapid economic growth either by deduction or observation. Both work just as well on their own, but each tells a similar story in this case.

The deductive route notes that economic growth stimulated by ever-higher amounts of borrowing simply requires greater and greater debt loads to accomplish. Eventually debt levels simply become too high, and pinch off growth.

We can also deduce that because economic growth is tightly linked to energy consumption, lower amounts of usable energy flowing through an economy will cause that economy to stall out as well. Because we know that both the quantity as well as the net yield we get from our energy-producing activities are flattening, this explains why GDP growth is flattening too.

Thus, from a deductive standpoint, combining what we know about high levels of debt and flattening energy returns energy there’s really no more room for confusion about why GDP growth is, and will remain, anemic (at best).

Observationally, we now have more than a full decade of sub-par (i.e., ‘too low’) world GDP growth:

Notice that the last year of data, 2016, is coming in at the lowest reading since the Great Recession, while the next two years are estimated to also come in at less than 3%. The world hasn’t averaged 3% GDP growth in a decade. Even the mighty US has gone more than ten straight years without breaking into the 3% range.

We have to ask: How many years does it take to finally admit that there’s something seriously wrong with our hopeful story line that robust growth is going to save our debt-ridden bacon?

Just for the record, things are not shaping up any better here in 2017 either…

Atlanta Fed GDPNow model predicts 1.2% 1Q17 growth

And, just for kicks, we might also note that the GDP forecasting agencies of the world have consistent in over-estimating future growth. Of course, this doesn't deter them from continuing to predicting higher future growth each year. As a case in point, here are the IMF's predictions for world growth over the past 6 years:

Each of those colored lines is a forecast. Each of them foresaw growth going notably higher in the near future. Not only was every one of them utterly wrong in direction, each failed at getting even the next quarter anywhere close to right. See how none of those lines ever dips below 3%? See in the prior chart how global growth never breached 3% in any of these same plotted years?

For a variety of reasons, with aging demographics being a huge factor, future growth in the OECD countries must slow:

My ‘prediction’ is that these projections will turn out to be far too high. Mainly because I include declining net energy in my views and no mainstream economist ever does. But the track records of these outfits shows that taking the ‘under’ side of the over/under bet offers incredibly safe odds.

At any rate, the main story here is that the only way we can begin to justify the astronomical levels of debt currently on the books, let alone slathering on new tranches just to keep the whole thing form imploding, is to have a story of endless, rapid future economic growth. Which is, we've already shown, a delusional fantasy.

Stagnating growth, ever more trillions of debt, and a finite amount of depleting net energy all adds up to an unsustainable mess. With asset price bubbles everywhere and wealth transfer mechanisms already in place, the end-game involves a very few winners and a lot of losers.

Anything that is this unsustainable will someday end. But how? And how should we position ourselves for it?

In Part 2: The Ka-POOM! Survival Guide, we detail in depth the most likely progression predicted by the Ka-POOM! model. First, a punishing crash in prices as natural market forces eventually overwhelm the Fed's doomed efforts to print the world to prosperity. Think of the 2008 crash, but on steroids.

Then will come the inevitable response from the central banking cartel: Set the printing machines on maximum speed! While this may seem to work for a brief while, it will soon collapse the world's currencies in a hyperinflationary deluge.

This will be a very tricky time for preserving wealth as things swing violently from disinflation to inflation. Understanding the mechanics and knowing what to expect will be critical -- not just for safeguarding your money, but for taking advantage of what will surely be some of the best bargains of our lifetime.

Fort Knox exposed: Is America's gold MISSING?

Christopher Furlong / Staff | Getty Images

President Trump promised that we would get a peek inside Fort Knox, but are we ready for what we might find?

In this new era of radical transparency, the possibility that the Deep State's darkest secrets could be exposed has many desperate for answers to old questions. Recently, Glenn has zeroed in on gold, specifically America's gold reserves, which are supposed to be locked away inside the vaults of Fort Knox. According to the government, there are 147.3 million ounces of gold stored within several small secured rooms that are themselves locked behind a massive 22 ton vault door, but the truth is that no one has officially seen this gold since 1953. An audit is long overdue, and President Trump has already shown interest in the idea.

America's gold reserve has been surrounded by suspicion for the better part of a hundred years. It all started in 1933, when FDR effectively nationalized the United States's private gold stores, forcing Americans to sell their gold to the government. This gold was melted down, forged into bars, and stored in the newly constructed U.S. Bullion Depository building at Fort Knox. By 1941, Fort Knox had held 649.6 million ounces of gold—which, you may have noticed, was 502.3 million ounces more than today. We'll come back to that.

By 1944, World War II was ending, and the Allies began planning how to rebuild Europe. The U.N. held a conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, where the USD was established as the world's reserve currency. This meant that any country (though not U.S. citizens) could exchange the USD for gold at the fixed rate of $35 per ounce. Already, you can see where our gold might have gone.

Jump to the 1960s, where Lyndon B. Johnson was busy digging America into a massive debt hole. Between the Vietnam War and Johnson's "Great Society" project, the U.S. was bleeding cash and printing money to keep up. But now Fort Knox no longer held enough physical gold to cover the $35 an ounce rate promised by the Bretton Woods agreement. France took notice of this weakness and began to redeem hundreds of millions of dollars. In the 70s Nixon staunched this gushing wound by halting foreign nations from redeeming dollars for gold, but this had the adverse effect of ending the gold standard.

This brings us to the present, where inflation is through the roof, no one knows how much gold is actually inside Fort Knox, and someone in America has been buying a LOT of gold. Who is buying this gold? Where is it going and for what purpose? Glenn has a few ideas, and one of them is MUCH better than the other:

The path back to gold

Mario Tama / Staff | Getty Images

One possibility is that all of this gold that has been flooding into America is in preparation for a shift back to a gold-backed, or partial-gold-backed system. The influx of gold corresponds with a comment recently made by Trump's new Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who said he was going to:

“Monetize the asset side of the U.S. balance sheet for the American people.”

Glenn pointed out that per a 1972 law, the gold in Fort Knox is currently set at a fixed value of $42 an ounce. At the time of this writing, gold was valued at $2,912.09 an ounce, which is more than a 6,800 percent increase. If the U.S. stockpile was revalued to reflect current market prices, it could be used to stabilize the dollar. This could even mean a full, or partial return to the gold standard, depending on the amount of gold currently being imported.

Empty coffers—you will own nothing

Raymond Boyd / Contributor | Getty Images

Unfortunately, Glenn suspects there is another, darker purpose behind the recent gold hubbub.

As mentioned before, the last realaudit of Fort Knox was done under President Eisenhower, in 1953. While the audit passed, a report from the Secretary of the Treasury revealed that a mere 13.6 percent was checked. For the better part of a century, we've had no idea how much gold is present under Fort Knox. After the gold hemorrhage in the 60s, many were suspicious of the status of our gold supply. In the 80s, a wealthy businessman named Edward Durell released over a decade's worth of research that led him to conclude that Fort Knox was all but empty. In short, he claimed that the Federal Reserve had siphoned off all the gold and sold it to Europe.

What would it mean if America's coffers are empty? According to a post by X user Matt Smith that Glenn shared, empty coffers combined with an influx of foreign gold could represent the beginning of a new, controlled economy. We couldstill be headed towards a future where you'll ownnothing.

Glenn: The most important warning of your lifetime—AI is coming for you

NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence isn’t coming. It’s here. The future we once speculated about is no longer science fiction—it’s reality. Every aspect of our lives, from how we work to how we think, is about to change forever. And if you’re not ready for it, you’re already behind. This isn’t just another technological leap. This is the biggest shift humanity has ever faced.

The last call before the singularity

I've been ringing this bell for 30 years. Thirty years warning you about what’s coming. And now, here we are. This isn’t a drill. This isn’t some distant future. It’s happening now. If you don’t understand what’s at stake, you need to wake up—because we have officially crossed the event horizon of artificial intelligence.

What’s an event horizon? It’s the edge of a black hole—the point where you can’t escape, no matter how hard you try. AI is that black hole. The current is too strong. The waterfall is too close. If you haven’t been paying attention, you need to start right now. Because once we reach Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), there is no turning back.

You’ve heard me talk about this for decades. AI isn’t just a fancy Siri. It isn’t just ChatGPT. We are on the verge of machines that will outthink every human who has ever lived—combined. ASI won’t just process information—it will anticipate, decide, and act faster than any of us can comprehend. It will change everything about our world, about our lives.

And yet, the conversation around AI has been wrong. People think the real dangers are coming later—some distant dystopian nightmare. But we are already in it. We’ve passed the point where AI is just a tool. It’s becoming the master. And the people who don’t learn to use it now—who don’t understand it, who don’t prepare for it—are going to be swallowed whole.

I know what some of you are thinking: "Glenn, you’ve spent years warning us about AI, about how dangerous it is. And now you’re telling us to embrace it?" Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Because if you don’t use this tool—if you don’t learn to master it—then you will be at its mercy.

This is not an option anymore. This is survival.

How you must prepare—today

I need you to take AI seriously—right now. Not next year, not five years from now. This weekend.

Here’s what I want you to do: Open up one of these AI tools—Grok 3, ChatGPT, anything advanced—and start using it. If you’re a CEO, have it analyze your competitors. If you’re an artist, let it critique your work. If you’re a stay-at-home parent, have it optimize your budget. Ask it questions. Push it to its limits. Learn what it can do—because if you don’t, you will be left behind.

Let me be crystal clear: AI is not your friend. It’s not your partner. It’s not something to trust. AI is a shovel—an extremely powerful shovel, but still just a tool. And if you don’t understand that, you’re in trouble.

We’ve already seen what happens when we surrender to technology without thinking. Social media rewired our brains. Smartphones reshaped our culture. AI will do all that—and more. If you don’t take control now, AI will control you.

Ask yourself: When AI makes decisions for you—when it anticipates your needs before you even know them—at what point do you stop being the one in charge? At what point does AI stop being a tool and start being your master?

And that’s not even the worst of it. The next step—transhumanism—is coming. It will start with good intentions. Elon Musk is already developing implants to help people walk again. And that’s great. But where does it stop? What happens when people start “upgrading” themselves? What happens when people choose to merge with AI?

I know my answer. I won’t cross that line. But you’re going to have to decide for yourself. And if you don’t start preparing now, that decision will be made for you.

The final warning—act now or be left behind

I need you to hear me. This is not optional. This is not something you can ignore. AI is here. And if you don’t act now, you will be lost.

The next 18 months will change everything. People who don’t prepare—who don’t learn to use AI—will be scrambling to catch up. And they won’t catch up. The gap will be too wide. You’ll either be leading, or you’ll be swallowed whole.

So start this weekend. Learn it. Test it. Push it. Master it. Because the people who don’t? They will be the tools.

The decision is yours. But time is running out.

The coming AI economy and the collapse of traditional jobs

Think back to past technological revolutions. The industrial revolution put countless blacksmiths, carriage makers, and farmhands out of business. The internet wiped out entire industries, from travel agencies to brick-and-mortar retail. AI is bigger than all of those combined. This isn’t just about job automation—it’s about job obliteration.

Doctors, lawyers, engineers—people who thought their jobs were untouchable—will find themselves replaced by AI. A machine that can diagnose disease with greater accuracy, draft legal documents in seconds, or design infrastructure faster than an entire team of engineers will be cheaper, faster, and better than human labor. If you’re not preparing for that reality, you’re already falling behind.

What does this mean for you? It means constant adaptation. Every three to five years, you will need to redefine your role, retrain, and retool. The only people who survive this AI revolution will be the ones who understand its capabilities and learn to work with it, not against it.

The moral dilemma: When do you stop being human?

The real danger of AI isn’t just economic—it’s existential. When AI merges with humans, we will face an unprecedented question: At what point do we stop being human?

Think about it. If you implant a neural chip that gives you access to the entire internet in your mind, are you still the same person? If your thoughts are intertwined with AI-generated responses, where do you end and AI begins? This is the future we are hurtling toward, and few people are even asking the right questions.

I’m asking them now. And you should be too. Because that line—between human and machine—is coming fast. You need to decide now where you stand. Because once we cross it, there is no going back.

Final thoughts: Be a leader, not a follower

AI isn’t a passing trend. It’s not a gadget or a convenience. It is the most powerful force humanity has ever created. And if you don’t take the time to understand it now, you will be at its mercy.

This is the defining moment of our time. Will you be a master of AI? Or will you be mastered by it? The choice is yours. But if you wait too long, you won’t have a choice at all.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Trump's Zelenskyy deal falls apart: What happened and what's next?

SAUL LOEB / Contributor | Getty Images

Trump offered Zelenskyy a deal he couldn’t refuse—but Zelenskyy rejected it outright.

Last Friday, President Donald Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Washington to sign a historic agreement aimed at ending the brutal war ravaging Ukraine. Joined by Vice President J.D. Vance, Trump met with Zelenskyy and the press before the leaders were set to retreat behind closed doors to finalize the deal. Acting as a gracious host, Trump opened the meeting by praising Zelenskyy and the bravery of Ukrainian soldiers. He expressed enthusiasm for the proposed agreement, emphasizing its benefits—such as access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals for the U.S.—and publicly pledged continued American aid in exchange.

Zelenskyy, however, didn’t share Trump’s optimism. Throughout the meeting, he interrupted repeatedly and openly criticized both Trump and Vance in front of reporters. Tensions escalated until Vance, visibly frustrated, fired back. The exchange turned the meeting hostile, and by its conclusion, Trump withdrew his offer. Rather than staying in Washington to resolve the conflict, Zelenskyy promptly left for Europe to seek support from the European Union.

As Glenn pointed out, Trump had carefully crafted this deal to benefit all parties, including Russia. Zelenskyy’s rejection was a major misstep.

Trump's generous offer to Zelenskyy

I believe Trump is playing 4-D chess with Zelenskyy. pic.twitter.com/L19RtQdCF6
— Glenn Beck (@glennbeck)
March 3, 2025

Glenn took to his whiteboard—swapping out his usual chalkboard—to break down Trump’s remarkable deal for Zelenskyy. He explained how it aligned with several of Trump’s goals: cutting spending, advancing technology and AI, and restoring America’s position as the dominant world power without military action. The deal would have also benefited the EU by preventing another war, revitalizing their economy, and restoring Europe’s global relevance. Ukraine and Russia would have gained as well, with the war—already claiming over 250,000 lives—finally coming to an end.

The media has portrayed last week’s fiasco as an ambush orchestrated by Trump to humiliate Zelenskyy, but that’s far from the truth. Zelenskyy was only in Washington because he had already rejected the deal twice—first refusing Vice President Vance and then Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It was Zelenskyy who insisted on traveling to America to sign the deal at the White House. If anyone set an ambush, it was him.

The EU can't help Ukraine

JUSTIN TALLIS / Contributor | Getty Images

After clashing with Trump and Vance, Zelenskyy wasted no time leaving D.C. The Ukrainian president should have stayed, apologized to Trump, and signed the deal. Given Trump’s enthusiasm and a later comment on Truth Social—where he wrote, “Zelenskyy can come back when he is ready for peace”—the deal could likely have been revived.

Meanwhile, in London, over a dozen European leaders, joined by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, convened an emergency meeting dubbed the “coalition of the willing” to ensure peace in Ukraine. This coalition emerged as Europe’s response to Trump’s withdrawal from the deal. By the meeting’s end, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a four-point plan to secure Ukrainian independence.

Zelenskyy, however, appears less than confident in the coalition’s plan. Recently, he has shifted his stance toward the U.S., apologizing to Trump and Vance and expressing gratitude for the generous military support America has already provided. Zelenskyy now says he wants to sign Trump’s deal and work under his leadership.

This is shaping up to be another Trump victory.

Glenn: No more money for the war machine, Senator McConnell

Tom Williams / Contributor | Getty Images

Senator McConnell, your call for more Pentagon spending is as tone-deaf as it is reckless. The United States already spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined — over $877 billion in 2023 alone, dwarfing China ($292 billion), Russia ($86 billion), and the entire EU’s collective defense budgets. And yet here you are, clamoring for more, as if throwing cash at an outdated war machine will somehow secure our future.

The world is changing, Senator, and your priorities are stuck in a bygone era.

Aircraft carriers — those floating behemoths you and the Pentagon so dearly love — are relics of the past. In the next real conflict, they’ll be as useless as horses were in World War I. Speaking of which, Europe entered that war with roughly 25 million horses; by 1918, fewer than 10 million remained, slaughtered by machine guns and artillery they couldn’t outrun.

That’s the fate awaiting your precious carriers against modern threats — sunk by hypersonic missiles or swarms of AI-driven drones before they can even launch a jet. The 1950s called, Senator — they want their war plans back.

The future isn’t in steel and jet fuel; it’s in artificial intelligence and artificial superintelligence. Every dollar spent on yesterday’s hardware is a dollar wasted in three years when AI upends everything we know about warfare. Worse, with the Pentagon’s track record, every dollar spent today could balloon into two or three dollars of inflation tomorrow, thanks to the House and Senate’s obscene spending spree.

We’re drowning in $34 trillion of national debt — 128% of GDP, a level unseen since World War II. Annual deficits hit $1.7 trillion in 2023, and interest payments alone are projected to top $1 trillion by 2026.

This isn’t sustainable; it’s a fiscal time bomb.

And yet you want to shovel more taxpayer money into a Pentagon that hasn’t passed a single audit in its history? Six attempts since 2018, six failures — trillions unaccounted for, waste so rampant that it defies comprehension. It’s irresponsible — bordering on criminal — to suggest more spending when the DOD can’t even count the cash it’s got.

The real threat isn’t just from abroad, though those dangers are profound. It’s from within. The call is coming from inside the house, Senator — and not just the House, but the Senate too. Your refusal to adapt is jeopardizing our security more than any foreign adversary.

Look at China’s drone shows — thousands of synchronized lights painting the sky. Now imagine those aren’t fireworks but weaponized drones, each one cheap, precise, and networked by AI. A single swarm could cripple our planes, ships, tanks, and troops before we fire a shot. Ukraine’s drone wars have already shown this reality: $500 drones taking out $10 million tanks. That’s the future staring us down, and we’re still polishing Cold War relics.

Freeze every bloated project.

Redirect everything — every dime, every mind — toward winning the AI/ASI race. That’s the only battlefield that matters. We’ve got enough stockpiles to handle any foreseeable war in the next three years and a president fighting to end conflicts, not start them. Your plea for more spending isn’t just misguided — it’s a betrayal of the American people sinking under debt and inflation while you chase ghosts of wars past.

Or is it even that senator? Perhaps I have buried the lede, but I am not sure if the following stats will help people understand why this op-ed might have been written by someone in your office.

Your state, Kentucky is:

45th in GDP Per Capita
44th in Employment
42nd in High School Diplomas

And 11th in Defense-related defense contract spending

Who are you actually concerned about, Senator? The safety of the American people or your war machine buddies?

Thanks, but no thanks.

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