The Dangerous Mythology of Central Banks (and out of control debt)

...Trump has purged the top echelons of the US military, the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, the justice department and every agency that stands in his way. It would be out of character if he spared the Fed.

His war of words against Powell is in full flight: “Low IQ ... a very stupid person, actually … terrible … a major loser … Mr too late ... a total and complete moron.”

Needless to say, Trump’s determination to get his hands on the machinery of interest rates and bond purchases is an admission that his “big, beautiful bill” is pushing the limits of US debt sustainability.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) says the draft will add $3.3 trillion (£2.4 trillion) to deficits by 2034, mostly from rolling over the Trump 1.0 tax cuts that were never affordable in the first place.

The US is in a runaway debt compound trap. The budget deficit is 6.7pc of GDP at full employment. The next recession will push it into double digits.

Interest costs were 1.6pc of GDP in 2018, during those halcyon days of free global money. They are 3.2pc this year and rising fast. “The federal budget has become highly sensitive to interest rate dynamics,” said James Knightley, from ING.

The US is also about to breach the Niall Ferguson rule: that great powers go into terminal decline once interest costs exceed military spending as a share of GDP.

Net public debt was 54pc of GDP at the turn of the century. It is now 121pc, rising by two points a year even in good times, and heading for 140pc in short order.

Read the rest here.

See also...

Republican Bill Puts Nation on New, More Perilous Fiscal Path

Tucker Carlson vs Ted Cruz (what we didn't get to see)

Europe considers global free trade pact (without America)

BRUSSELS — Late at night, after a dinner of dumplings and duck legs, the European Union’s leadership excitedly revealed a new plan to combat the hell-raising American president’s trade war: Take him on at his own wild game.

For six months, Donald Trump has upended the global trading order, threatening and announcing tariffs, then easing them to open negotiations, while warning that punitive levies will be reimposed if the terms are not to his liking.

With just 13 days until the Trump-imposed deadline to conclude a EU-U.S. deal, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen decided the time for conventional negotiating tactics was over.

She floated the idea that the EU’s 27 countries could join forces with 12 members of the Asian-led Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership bloc (CPTPP) — which now includes the U.K. — to form a new world trade initiative. 

The new grouping would redesign a rules-based global trading order, reforming or perhaps even replacing the now largely defunct World Trade Organization, she said.

Crucially, the U.S. would not automatically be invited.

Read the rest here.

Andrew Sullivan Takes on the Extremism in the Alphabet+ Movement

To be honest, I am astonished that this was actually published by the New York Times. Mr. Sullivan just picked up a stick and and took a very big swing at one of the radical left's most sacred hornets nests. One hopes he is wearing an asbestos suit because I think he may have just supplanted J.K. Rowling as their new public enemy #1. 

Read it here.

Zohran Mamdani’s Victory in NYC Rattles Wall Street

...Lawrence Summers, the former Treasury Secretary and president of Harvard University, also expressed his distaste Mamdani’s nomination.

“I am profoundly alarmed about the future of the [Democratic National Committee] and the country, by yesterday’s NYC anointment of a candidate who failed to disavow a ‘globalize the intifada’ slogan and advocated Trotskyite economic policies,” Summers said in a post on X.

Part of the stock market has already felt the pain from the prospect of a Mamdani-led NYC. Shares of New York regional bank Flagstar, with exposure to the New York real estate market, sank nearly 4% Wednesday. Office-focused real estate stocks also suffered, with SL Green Realty down more than 6% and Vornado Realty Trust down nearly 7%.

Mamdani advocates for universal rent control, and the New York City mayor has the power to appoint representatives to the regulatory board that oversees rent-controlled and rent-stabilized apartments. A pause on rent increases would hurt the profits of multi-family rental properties.

Roughly one million New York City apartments are rent stabilized but only about 20,000 are still rent controlled.

“It appears that NYC is electing to commit suicide by Mayor,” Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at Bianco Research, said in a post on X Tuesday evening.

Read the rest here.

Food for thought

Coal miners used to form study groups to read Gibbon & Thucydides. Lincoln and Douglas delivered speeches that lasted three hours with no pauses. C. S. Lewis, like many kids of his era, read Paradise Lost at age nine and was translating Homer by sixteen. The brain rot is real. https://t.co/Wr1eHVBJRv

— Boze the Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ (@SketchesbyBoze) June 22, 2025

HT: Fr. Z

Greek Orthodox Church Bombed in Syria

A suicide bombing by Islamic State (IS) targeting a church in Damascus has killed 22 people and wounded 63, Syrian state media have said.

The attack on Sunday night was the first major IS operation and the first suicide bombing in Syria since former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was toppled in December and replaced by an Islamist-led government.

A man affiliated with IS entered the Greek Orthodox Saint Elias church in the old Christian quarter of Damascus during prayers, opened fire and then detonated an explosive vest while inside the church, Syria’s interior ministry said. Eyewitnesses inside the church reported a second gunman who did not blow himself up, but also shot at the 150 or so worshippers present.

“People were praying safely under the eyes of God,” said Fadi Ghattas, who said he saw at least 20 people killed. “There were 350 people praying at the church.”

Videos of the church’s interior show splintered pews overturned by the force of the blast and the bloodied corpses of congregants splayed out across the church. Nearby residents reported hearing a large blast and then the sound of sirens as security forces attempted to establish a cordon around the area and civil defence personnel headed towards the church.

Issam Nasr, who was praying at the church, said he saw people “blown to bits”.

“We have never held a knife in our lives. All we ever carried were our prayers,” he said.

Read the rest here.

Further this

Holy New Martyrs of Syria, pray for us. 

Dr. Tighe on the Decline & Fall of the Old Catholics

Definitely worth a read.

Putin's War: One Million Russian Casualties

...This month, Russia’s wartime toll of dead and wounded reached a historic milestone.

According to the British Ministry of Defence, more than one million Russian troops have been killed or injured since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022.

The estimate aligns with a recent study by the US-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), which puts Russian military deaths at up to 250,000 and total casualties, including the wounded, at over 950,000. Ukraine has suffered very high losses as well, with between 60,000 and 100,000 personnel killed and total casualties reaching approximately 400,000.

While precise wartime casualty figures are notoriously difficult to verify, the independent Russian outlet Mediazona has identified the names of more than 111,000 Russian military personnel killed, using official records, social media obituaries, and images of tombstones. The outlet believes the true death toll is significantly higher.

These are staggering figures by any measure of comparison in modern Russian history.

In just over three years, Russian fatalities are estimated to be five times higher than the combined death toll from all Soviet and Russian wars between the end of the second world war and the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

The war in Ukraine has proved far deadlier for the Kremlin than other recent conflicts: Russia’s losses are roughly 15 times greater than those suffered during the Soviet Union’s decade-long war in Afghanistan, and 10 times higher than in Russia’s 13-year war in Chechnya.

And it’s not just the dead returning in caskets – soldiers with amputated limbs and serious injuries are also coming home, driving a sharp rise in the production of prosthetic limbs.

“We doubled the number of our clients one year into the conflict and since then it has been a steady 10% increase annually,” said Igor Vinogradov, the director of a mid-sized prosthetics and orthopaedics firm in northern Russia.

“By far, the majority are war veterans,” Vinogradov said, adding that his company relies on imported prosthetic arms and legs from Germany, as well as some homegrown technology.

Read the rest here.

Pope Leo XIV brings back another tradition

It may seem like a trivial matter, but Pope Leo XIV plans to take some time off during the dog days of summer. His predecessor, Pope Francis, was a notorious workaholic. Unless ill, he rarely took time off and he never took a vacation during his papacy. It also appears he didn't want any of his successors to take any down time. Prior to his papacy it had been customary for the pope to retire to their summer residence at Castel Gandolfo for a few weeks each year in order to escape Rome's brutal heat. During that time the Vatican often slowed down with curia and staff taking summer holidays. The summer residence has a lot of history in its own right. Benedict XVI went there after his abdication to await the election of his successor. Two popes, Pius XII and Paul VI died there. And during the Second World War the Vatican hid large numbers of refugees including Jews from the Nazis in the summer palace. But Francis tried to put a stop to its use. He ordered the place converted into a museum and never spent a night there, visiting only twice for a couple of hours. In a bit of a return to normalcy, the Holy See has announced the new pope plans to revive the old custom and spend a couple of weeks at Castel Gandolfo this July. 

UK Decriminalizes Abortion Up To Moment of Birth

Words fail.

Star Trek (the red version)

To be honest; I always thought Star Trek, especially TNG, was basically presenting a semi-communistic view of the future.

On the Next Archbishop of Canterbury

It's not looking good. But then, when was the last time anything coming out of the CofE looked good?

Story here.

HT: Dr. Tighe

Germany May Revive the Draft

BERLIN — Germany may need to turn to compulsory measures to get more soldiers into the ranks of its depleted military, say senior lawmakers from Chancellor Friedrich Merz's conservatives.

The government is drafting legislation to revitalize a shrinking Bundeswehr, but so far efforts to recruit more troops have relied on voluntary measures. Now, senior conservative lawmakers are warning that may have to be backed up by a return to the draft.

“If it turns out that the significant personnel needs for a Bundeswehr capable of defense and deterrence, especially in light of the new NATO plans, cannot be met through a purely voluntary model, compulsory elements will have to be introduced,” said Thomas Erndl, who represents the Christian Democrats on the parliamentary defense committee. 

Read the rest here.

W's Crystal Ball

George W. Bush called out the MAGA agenda years before Trump rode down that escalator. pic.twitter.com/17U0d1DkBy

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) June 7, 2025

I've had my differences with George Bush, but he nailed this one.

ALLIED ARMIES LAND ON COAST OF FRANCE. GREAT INVASION OF CONTINENT BEGINS

It's almost impossible to imagine what it was like on the home front June 6, 1944. But you can get an idea by listening to some of the wall to wall news coverage that was broadcast periodically interrupted by patriotic music and prayer from famous clergy and FDR. It must have been gut wrenching for families with loved ones in the service. Radio coverage...
CBS
NBC

Catholics, Trump and Russia

Put not thy trust in presidents...

Trump's Assault on the Rule of Law via Abuse of the Pardon

President Trump is employing the vast power of his office to redefine criminality to suit his needs — using pardons to inoculate criminals he happens to like, downplaying corruption and fraud as crimes, and seeking to stigmatize political opponents by labeling them criminals.

In the past few days, Mr. Trump has offered pardons or clemency to more than two dozen people embraced by his obstreperous right-wing base, or favored by people in his orbit. Most are political allies, some are former officeholders accused of abusing power for personal gain, and almost all were convicted of white-collar crimes like fraud, tax evasion and campaign finance violations — not far removed from accusations Mr. Trump himself has faced.

“No MAGA left behind,” crowed Ed Martin, the pardon attorney at the Justice Department who suggested that the department should investigate Mr. Trump’s adversaries to shame them if there was insufficient evidence to charge them.

Mr. Trump has used his pardon power, like nearly every other executive tool in his kit, to assert personal dominance over processes generally, if not always, governed by established ethical and institutional guardrails. He professes to abide by the rule of law, but has often shown a willingness to do so only when he defines the rules and the laws.

Mr. Trump has said the current wave of pardons is justified by President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s last-minute reprieves for inmates on federal death row, and pardons he issued to his family — which Mr. Trump called “disgraceful.”

Yet, critics say, Mr. Trump has used the pardon powers of the presidency not to settle accounts, as Mr. Biden did, but to burn the ledger.

“Granting pardons or commuting sentences of public officials or other white-collar criminals convicted of fraud, tax evasion and other breaches of trust is likely to have the effect of normalizing nonviolent crimes,” said Barbara L. McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor who served as a U.S. attorney in the state during the Obama administration.

“Of course, stealing by fraud is still stealing,” she added. “It’s just that this is the way rich people do it.”

Mr. Trump made no secret of his intention to seek retribution against those who prosecuted him at the local, state and federal levels, whom he has described collectively as “scum.” The new pardons are necessary to right the wrongs of a politicized Biden Justice Department that twice indicted him, he has claimed.

Read the rest here.

Urgent Prayers

I do not know the details, however there are widespread reports that an Egyptian court has issued a ruling allowing the government to seize St. Catherine's Monastery in Sinai. This apparently includes all of its property, ancient treasures, manuscripts, icons &c. It would also involve the eviction of the monks. As of this post, the reports are somewhat contradictory, with some being quite alarming and others suggesting that Egypt has no plans to seize the ancient monastery. Updates will be posted as more information becomes available.

HT: Blog reader John L.

Update: Good news. It looks like this was a false alarm. Recent reports and statements from the Egyptian government are categorically denying any change in the monastery's status. 

I promise you free this, that, and the other thing.

Just don't check my math.