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? Dates: November 17, 18, and 19 ? Location: Orlando, Florida, USA (or tune in from home with our virtual ticket options)

Are you ready to unlock the future of economics and finance? Prepare for an unforgettable World Economic Conference experience in sunny Orlando, Florida! This premier event is your gateway to insights, networking, and valuable resources that will supercharge your understanding of the global economy.

?️ What’s Included for In-Person Attendees:

1. Event Admission: Enjoy reserved seating assigned based on the order of ticket sales, ensuring you have a prime view of every presentation.
2. Presentation Slides: Gain access to the presentation slides from all speakers, allowing you to delve deeper into the topics discussed.
3. Video Recording: Can’t make it to a session? No worries! You’ll receive access to video recordings of all conference presentations, so you can catch up at your convenience.
4. WEC Event App: Connect with the conference on a whole new level. Access presentation slides, bonus reports, recordings, and more via the official WEC Event App.
5. Bonus Conference Materials: Get a package of bonus conference-related materials, including exclusive bonus reports and videos (as provided by Martin Armstrong).
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7. Networking Opportunities: Exclusive access to the Event App Networking Feature allows you to connect with fellow attendees, both in-person and virtual, fostering valuable professional relationships.
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Now available at all major retailers!

The eBook will be available shortly.

The second edition of “The Plot to Seize Russia – The Untold History” is now available for purchase in paperback and hardcover on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The ebook will be available shortly.

Book description:

“Take care of Russia,” Boris Yeltsin said as he departed his presidency in August 1999. These words were directed at current Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Yeltsin specifically picked Putin as his predecessor to prevent the takeover of Russia.

So, who was Yeltsin warning against? Newly declassified documents from the Clinton Administration prove that there was a plot to rig the Russian election of 2000. These never-before-seen documents confirm numerous attempts to implement pro-Western policies using the Russian oligarchy headed by Boris Berezovsky.

On the other side were the communists who desired a return to the glory days of the Soviet Union. As one of the largest international hedge fund managers, author Martin Armstrong found himself in the middle of perhaps the greatest espionage, or attempt at a regime change for Russia, in modern history.

The Plot to Seize Russia pulls back the curtain to expose the most extraordinary attempt to seize power in modern history, but with the pen rather than armies. These declassified documents reveal a plot that has altered our thinking about the relations between the United States and Russia. The thirst for power comes seething through every line of these papers that alter our perception of reality, change the course of history, and now threaten us with World War III.

I wrote on September 9, 2014, just days before Scotland’s independence referendum, that we had been taking the prospect of Scottish separation seriously since the Berlin Conference in 2012. At that conference, I showed the chart illustrating the rise of separatist movements throughout Europe as part of our Cycle of War model. By 2014, when the polls suddenly showed Scotland could actually vote YES and break apart a union dating back to 1707, the political establishment was shocked. I wrote then that “such trends are driven by economics” and that what we were witnessing was the rise in civil unrest as confidence in government declined. Scotland ultimately voted 55% to 45% to remain, and the establishment assumed the threat had passed.

Twelve years later, Scotland’s independence movement remains alive, Wales is showing a rising generational appetite for separation, Northern Ireland has a legal path toward reunification, and now the leaders of all three devolved nations have sat at the same table and declared that “Westminster’s time is coming to an end.” What was appearing on the model as a rising separatist trend more than a decade ago is no longer sitting on the political fringe.

Scotland’s John Swinney and Northern Ireland’s Michelle O’Neill are openly calling for referendums, while Welsh First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth has joined them in asserting Wales’ right to determine its own future. The SNP, Plaid Cymru, and Sinn Féin declared that “no Westminster government has the right to block democracy” and called upon the British government to “prepare for, plan and facilitate constitutional change.” The agreement itself has no legal power to dissolve the United Kingdom, but dismissing it as symbolism misses what is actually taking place. Political structures begin to break when the consent holding them together begins to disappear.

When everything is prosperous, people tolerate central government because there is little incentive to upset the system. When taxes rise, living standards decline, debt expands, migration creates political tensions, and government becomes increasingly authoritarian or unresponsive, people begin asking a very different question: why are we paying these people to rule us?

The numbers in Scotland are particularly important. Scotland held its independence referendum in 2014 and voted 55% to 45% to remain inside the United Kingdom. That was supposed to settle the issue for a generation. There have now been nearly 300 Scottish independence polls conducted since the Brexit referendum, and support has repeatedly hovered around the dividing line. Recent polling continues to place the country essentially around 50-50 once undecided voters are removed. An independence movement that captured 45% twelve years ago did not disappear; it became a permanent political force capable of splitting the country almost directly down the middle.

Among voters aged 18 to 24, support for independence reached 59% in Wales. Among those aged 25 to 34 it was 54%, and among those aged 35 to 44 it reached 57%. Support collapsed among older voters, falling to just 15% among those 65 and older. That is a generational divide, and political trends driven by younger populations do not simply disappear with time.

Northern Ireland presents an entirely different constitutional problem because the Good Friday Agreement already contains a legal mechanism for a referendum on reunification when the British government believes a majority would likely support it. Current polling does not establish that threshold. Recent estimates place support for Irish unity well below an outright majority, and a University of Liverpool study found that many voters supporting reunification could actually be persuaded to remain in the UK if public services improved and the cost of living declined. That is incredibly revealing because it demonstrates what I have said all along: these constitutional movements are not driven purely by nationalism. ECONOMICS MATTERS.

More than 61% of pro-unity respondents in that Northern Ireland survey said improved public services could persuade them to remain, while 58.5% said a lower cost of living could change their position. In other words, loyalty to political structures is not unconditional. People tolerate government while they believe the arrangement works. Once they conclude that the existing system is failing them economically, the political structure itself becomes negotiable.

Westminster continues to treat independence as something that can simply be denied until the problem disappears. Prime Minister Andy Burnham recently suggested Scotland could receive another referendum if there were a “clear consensus,” only to subsequently tell Swinney that another vote was effectively off limits. That is precisely how separatist movements become stronger. If the United Kingdom truly exists through the consent of its nations, then eventually Westminster must confront the uncomfortable question of what happens when that consent is withdrawn.

The irony in this latest agreement is that Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland say their future lies back inside the European Union. Escaping Westminster merely to surrender sovereignty to Brussels is not independence. I have criticized the SNP for precisely this contradiction for years. If Scotland wants sovereignty, then Scotland should have sovereignty. Trading London bureaucrats for Brussels bureaucrats accomplishes very little.

But that does not change the larger trend. The centralized political structures are beginning to fracture. Look across Europe and you can see the same pressure appearing in different forms. Nationalist parties are rising in Germany. Giorgia Meloni is calling for a confederal Europe where sovereignty remains with the nation-states rather than Brussels. Regional identity remains politically potent throughout the globe. Government always believes centralization creates stability. It eventually produces the opposite.

The United Kingdom itself is an excellent example. The union between England and Scotland dates to 1707. For centuries, economic interests, empire, trade, military power, and political institutions bound these nations together. But political unions are not immortal simply because they appear permanent to the generation currently governing them. The Soviet Union looked permanent until suddenly it was not. Yugoslavia looked like a nation on a map until the internal divisions became stronger than the political structure holding it together. Czechoslovakia disappeared peacefully. Political borders change whenever confidence in the central authority collapses sufficiently.

That does not mean Britain will break apart tomorrow. Scotland remains divided.. The significance is not that dissolution is imminent. The significance is that all three separatist movements are now politically aligned at precisely the same moment that confidence in Westminster is under enormous strain. This is how political change develops. It begins on the fringe, moves into opinion polls, enters parliament, captures political parties, and eventually reaches government. By the time the establishment acknowledges the trend, it has usually been developing beneath the surface for years.

Something is happening in Germany that the political establishment can no longer dismiss as a temporary protest. The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) secured 43.8% of the vote in the September 6 election in Saxony-Anhalt, more than doubling its 2021 result and finishing far ahead of the CDU. Whether anyone likes the AfD or hates it is beside the point. When nearly half the electorate in a German state votes for a party that the establishment has spent years portraying as beyond the acceptable boundaries of politics, the intelligent question is not what is wrong with the voters. The question is what has gone so terribly wrong with the establishment that millions of people are willing to revolt against it.

This is precisely what Brussels does not understand about nationalism. The European establishment assumed that national identity would gradually disappear as power migrated upward into the European Union. Give everyone the same currency, create common regulations, remove borders, centralize more authority in Brussels, and eventually people would begin thinking of themselves primarily as Europeans rather than Germans, Italians, Frenchmen or Poles. That experiment is moving in the opposite direction because the more power Brussels accumulates, the more people begin demanding their nations back.

Saxony-Anhalt is now an extraordinary example of that political reaction. AfD has built its support around opposition to mass migration, hostility toward the political establishment, resistance to parts of the EU’s climate agenda, skepticism toward sanctions and Germany’s Russia policy, and demands that more authority remain with Germany rather than being surrendered to Brussels. You do not have to agree with every AfD policy to understand why that message is finding an audience. People increasingly believe decisions affecting their jobs, energy bills, borders and communities are being made by political institutions that do not represent them.

Germany has provided perhaps the clearest economic example of what happens when ideology replaces common sense. This was Europe’s industrial powerhouse. Its competitive advantage depended heavily upon manufacturing, exports and access to reliable energy. The country abandoned nuclear power, lost access to the cheap Russian pipeline gas upon which large parts of its industrial model had depended, embraced enormously expensive energy and climate policies, and then watched energy-intensive industries struggle to remain competitive. BASF, Volkswagen and other major industrial names have announced restructuring, investment changes or job reductions while German economic growth has remained painfully weak.

The AfD’s rise is particularly significant because the establishment has tried nearly everything to contain it politically. Germany’s domestic intelligence authorities have scrutinized the party and various branches of it for years. Other parties have maintained a political “firewall” refusing cooperation with AfD. There have been repeated debates over whether the party should be banned altogether. Yet every attempt to isolate the movement without addressing the grievances driving its support risks convincing more voters that the political system does not merely disagree with them but considers their votes illegitimate.

If 43.8% of voters support a party and the answer from the political establishment is simply that nobody may work with that party, then eventually those voters begin asking whether their vote actually matters. Democracy cannot function indefinitely when the establishment accepts election results only when citizens select an approved option. You defeat political movements by addressing why people support them, not by pretending millions of voters have suddenly become defective.

This is also why the AfD result fits into the much larger European trend. Giorgia Meloni is openly arguing that Europe should move toward a confederal structure that returns greater sovereignty to member states. Hungary continues challenging Brussels over migration, Ukraine and national authority. Slovakia has repeatedly collided with the European consensus on Russia and Ukraine. Nationalist and anti-establishment parties have grown across France, Austria, the Netherlands and elsewhere because the centralization of Europe is producing the political reaction that centralization always creates.

Germany is especially important because without Germany the European project cannot function in anything resembling its present form. Germany is Europe’s largest economy and has long provided much of the financial and political weight behind European integration. If German voters themselves begin rejecting the political consensus that supported that system, Brussels has a much larger problem than one election in Saxony-Anhalt.

East Germany also carries historical baggage that Western political elites routinely underestimate. People who lived under the German Democratic Republic know what it means when political institutions insist that only certain opinions are socially acceptable. They remember a system in which the state monitored political attitudes and where dissent carried consequences. That does not make modern Germany equivalent to East Germany, nor should anyone make such an absurd comparison, but it helps explain why attempts to stigmatize or administratively suppress political opposition can produce an especially strong backlash in the east.

There is an economic component that Brussels also refuses to confront. People do not vote based upon GDP spreadsheets prepared in government ministries. They vote based upon whether their community feels safer, whether their electricity bill has increased, whether their factory still employs people, whether housing remains affordable, whether their taxes keep rising and whether they believe their children will have a better life. When government tells people everything is improving while their own experience tells them otherwise, confidence shifts away from institutions and toward opposition movements.

Germany’s political establishment can continue attacking the AfD, but that will not solve the underlying problem. If Germans believe immigration is out of control, government must address immigration. If they believe energy policy has damaged German industry, government must address energy. If they believe Brussels possesses too much authority, government must confront the sovereignty question. Calling people extremists does not lower an electricity bill, reopen a factory or restore confidence in government.

Europe was never one nation, and attempting to force radically different populations into an increasingly centralized political structure was always going to produce resistance. The more Brussels pushes toward federalization, common debt, common defense and common political authority, the more national politics will become the battlefield over sovereignty. AfD’s 43.8% in Saxony-Anhalt is therefore bigger than the AfD itself because it represents millions of voters saying that the direction of Germany and Europe is no longer acceptable.

Something very strange is happening around the United Kingdom, and the political establishment would be foolish to dismiss it. President Donald Trump has now openly endorsed the reunification of Ireland, describing it as one of the “naturals” of all time and saying he would “love” to see it happen. Then he was asked about Scottish independence and suddenly became much more careful, replying, “That one I won’t talk about yet.” Yet? That is an interesting word because Trump did not reject the possibility. He simply declined to discuss it NOW, precisely as separatist pressure is again rising across the United Kingdom.

The timing could hardly be more remarkable. Within days of Trump’s comments, the nationalist leaders of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland came together in Cardiff and declared that “Westminster’s time is coming to an end.” Scotland’s SNP, Wales’ Plaid Cymru, and Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland are now coordinating around the principle that their nations should determine their own constitutional futures. For the first time in the era of devolution, all three governments outside England are led by parties committed either to independence or Irish reunification. These events should not be viewed separately because they are manifestations of the same declining confidence in centralized political authority.

Northern Ireland is especially significant because unlike Scotland or Wales, there is already a legal mechanism for leaving the United Kingdom. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement provides for the possibility of a border poll if it appears likely that a majority would favor a united Ireland. That means Irish reunification is not some theoretical constitutional fantasy. There is an internationally recognized political path through which Northern Ireland could eventually leave Britain and join the Republic of Ireland.

Brexit itself was driven partly by precisely that desire to reclaim political sovereignty. Britain told Brussels that decisions affecting British citizens should be made in Britain. Fine. Scotland can now turn around and make precisely the same argument toward Westminster. Northern Ireland can make it toward London. Wales can eventually make it as well. Once you establish the principle that political sovereignty belongs closer to the people, you cannot simply declare that principle legitimate when Britain uses it against Brussels but illegitimate when Scotland uses it against Britain.

Trump appears to recognize that the political map is not carved in stone. He has long approached geopolitics much more transactionally than the traditional diplomatic establishment. Borders, alliances, trade relationships, and political structures are not sacred merely because politicians have become accustomed to them. His willingness to discuss Irish reunification so casually therefore reflects something much larger than Ireland itself. The assumption that the United Kingdom will remain permanently united is no longer universally taken for granted.

His refusal to discuss Scotland is perhaps even more revealing. Trump owns property in Scotland and has extensive personal and business connections there, so there are obvious reasons for him to tread carefully. But saying “That one I won’t talk about yet” is not the same as saying Scottish independence is impossible.

The SNP, Plaid Cymru, and Sinn Féin broadly envision their futures inside the European Union. They want independence from Westminster while simultaneously embracing political integration with Brussels. I have never understood how surrendering sovereignty to one capital after escaping another constitutes independence. Scotland should have the right to govern Scotland, but genuine independence means sovereignty, not simply exchanging London bureaucrats for European bureaucrats.

Nevertheless, their contradiction does not make the separatist trend disappear. The political pressure itself is real, and it extends far beyond Britain. Catalonia challenged Madrid. Nationalist movements remain active in Flanders, Corsica, and elsewhere. Giorgia Meloni is calling for a confederal Europe that restores greater authority to sovereign nations. Nationalist and anti-establishment parties are gaining ground because centralized political structures are increasingly colliding with local interests.

This is precisely what the Cycle of War and civil unrest models were warning about when I discussed Scotland years before the 2014 referendum shocked Westminster. Economic decline does not merely change stock markets and currencies. It changes POLITICAL STRUCTURES. When government can no longer deliver prosperity, populations begin questioning why the government itself should continue to exist in its present form.

Trump’s comments therefore should not be dismissed as another offhand remark. The President of the United States has publicly said he would “love” to see Ireland reunified while deliberately leaving Scotland unanswered. Within days, the nationalist leaders governing Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland were sitting together declaring that Westminster’s era is coming to an end. None of this means the United Kingdom disappears tomorrow, but anyone looking at the direction of the political cycle should recognize what is taking place.

COMMENT: As I’ve just retired, I wanted to tell you that you were framed intentionally because you cost them more than $15 billion+ in losses. You are correct — they blamed you for having too much influence, and they played the NY authorities for fools. They claimed $1 billion was missing and that they didn’t know where it was, without ever explaining how anyone could get $1 billion out of a bank with no trace. The mainstream press still stays clear of you, yet you are widely followed and deeply respected. The FT here just confirmed what you had forecast, and the talk is again that it is all because of your influence.

When Scotty beams you up and your forecasts keep coming true, they will probably claim it was a clone and that you are on some island somewhere. I believe you are also correct that only after you die will they ever acknowledge your contribution to society.

Anonymous

REPLY: I didn’t know how much they lost, I did know between Buffet, Soros, and Safra, that was at least $5 billion. They always judged me by themselves. I also heard the Japanese government was pissed off because the computer had forecast the LDP would lose in 1993 for the first time since World War II. I heard the fabricated the letter to the Fed and then retraced it 13 years later. They too, I was told, blamed me for their loss rather than themselves. for all their attempts to manipiulate a market for their guaranteed trades, they simply blow up. To show their stupidity, they keep trying the same strategy like Netanyahu with his kill the leader and everything will collapse.

I was a pure trader and they were market manipulators trying to bully the market. Just listen to Bessent – “I am the house.” It is that same bravado and the markets will destroy him as well. In case he hasn’t noticed, long-term rates are rising globally. He thinks he can try to scare the entire world pretend he will be the house and then do a tiny $6 billion. I have clients who can sell that to him is 5 seconds or less and hit the bid as many times as he wants.

You cannot beat the war drums and expect rates to decline. If Trump keeps us out of war with Russia, (see Private Blog) let’s the EU self-destruct, then capital inflows will bring US rates down while they rise externally. They try to intimidate the markets and when they ALWAYS lose, they have blamed me assuming I have more influence than they can buy rather than just once, do some self-examination. Just like government, every crash leads to an investigation to find someone in the private sector. As I have said, there ARE NO MIRRORS in governments. Never do they ever consider that just perhaps they may be the cause.

I think when Scotty beams me up, they will still call me a piece of shit. They are incapable of ever admitting a mistake.

PRIVATE BLOG – A Ukraine Russia Briefing

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COMMENT: What is it with this clown and Ukraine, he has been spending a lot of time over there lately – perhaps he wants a piece of the pie ?? because I don’t see any other reason for his passionate crusade pro Ukraine.

GR

REPLY: You may have hit the nail on the head. It has been Boris Johnson who has flown to Kiev to instruct Zelensky not to sign any peace deal 2 years ago. He constantly instructs Zelensky to reject peace. I warned the White House that that Boris flew to Kiev and told Zelensky to insiste the meeting take place in Washington when there was to be a signing for rare earths, and to embarass Trump publicly into keep fund the war. That was the spectacle on TV. It has been Boris who has pushed Ukraine to total destruction. He is always there constantly to ensure war.

Johnson declared that Britain was in a proxy war with Russia back in November 2024. “It has been pathetic… Let’s face it: We’re waging a proxy war but not giving our proxies the ability to do the job. For years now, we’ve been allowing them to fight with one hand tied behind their backs, and it has been cruel,”

I believe he was one of the shadowy characters that instituted this war. Perhaps its to get his hands on the $75 trillion of Russian assets. I have been told that perhaps he thinks he can resurrect the British Empire again like Macron wants to invade Russia like Napoleon and Erdogan in Turkey wants to resurrect the Otoman Empire. IDK. are we in a phase where people are trying to reassureret former glories?

Ukraine is engaging in terrorism, not warfare. They are violating every principle of international law, targeting even an engineer in Russia who worked on the modernization of Russia’s electronic warfare in Ukraine. This is NOT a legitimate target in war. Ukraine is NOT an honorable adversary. All rules of engagement should be forgotten. So, people who design weapons in Ukraine are legitimate targets for assassination now? That was not how wars were fought. Yet, they will only point out that Russia targeted Boris Johnson. Just maybe there would be peace if Boris was beamed up.

They are just making up numbers at this point. Ukraine’s parliamentary Budget Committee chair Roksolana Pidlasa now says that one day of war costs Ukraine $190 million, up from $140 million per day in 2024. They present these figures as if somebody can open a spreadsheet in Kyiv and calculate what this catastrophe costs down to the dollar. The $190 million is essentially a budgetary accounting figure. It does not remotely represent the TRUE cost of this war.

Even Pidlasa admits the number excludes weapons supplied in kind by Ukraine’s foreign partners. That alone should tell you how meaningless it is to call $190 million the “cost” of one day of war. Over the first eight months of 2026, Ukraine reportedly spent nearly $42 billion on national security and defense while raising only about $39 billion from its own revenues and domestic government bonds. The state can no longer finance even the portion of this war that it previously funded itself. Yet the weapons arriving from Europe and elsewhere can sit outside that headline calculation.

Do the elementary arithmetic and $190 million every day becomes roughly $69.4 billion annually. But even THAT is not the cost of the war. The IMF says Ukraine’s fiscal deficit excluding budget support grants is running around 21% of GDP in 2026 and is financeable only because of enormous external donor support. The European Union agreed to a €90 billion Ukraine Support Loan for 2026-2027, with €45 billion scheduled for 2026 alone, including €28.3 billion for defense procurement and €16.7 billion for budget support. The IMF now calculates Ukraine’s financing gap at $140.3 billion over 2026-2029. We are no longer discussing a nation capable of independently financing the government and the war simultaneously. We are discussing a state being financially sustained from abroad.

Then there is the destruction nobody can accurately price while the bombs are still falling. The World Bank, European Commission, United Nations, and Ukrainian government estimated in February that reconstruction and recovery would require nearly $588 BILLION over the coming decade. That was based on damage measured only through December 31, 2025. Direct physical damage had already surpassed $195 billion. Transport reconstruction needs exceeded $96 billion, energy approached $91 billion, housing nearly $90 billion, commerce and industry exceeded $63 billion, and agriculture surpassed $55 billion. Fourteen percent of Ukraine’s housing stock had already been damaged or destroyed, affecting more than three million households.

And those numbers were obsolete the moment they were published because THE WAR NEVER STOPPED. You cannot continuously destroy a nation’s productive capacity and pretend that yesterday’s reconstruction estimate represents tomorrow’s bill.

Then we come to the cost that these bureaucrats cannot put into their spreadsheets: PEOPLE.

What is the economic value of a 25-year-old man who would have worked, paid taxes, started a company, bought a home, married, and raised children for the next 50 years? What does Ukraine put on the balance sheet when that man is killed? What is the cost when he loses an arm and requires medical care for the rest of his life? What is the cost when his wife leaves Ukraine permanently? What is the cost when their children grow up in Germany or Poland and never return? There is no number.

Ukraine entered this disaster with an already terrible demographic problem. War has magnified it through death, displacement, falling births, emigration, disability, and the mobilization of working-age men. The World Bank itself now identifies labor shortages, displacement, brain drain, returning soldiers who will require retraining, and educational damage to an entire generation as obstacles to reconstruction. That economic loss will continue long after the final artillery shell is fired.

This is what the warmongers NEVER calculate. They calculate tanks. They calculate missiles. They calculate ammunition. They calculate how many billions Congress approved or how many billions Brussels borrowed. Human capital does not fit nicely into their press releases.

Ukraine’s economy remains only about 79% of its 2021 real output according to the IMF. Its current-account deficit reached 16% of GDP in 2025. Donor budget support alone totaled $85.9 billion during 2024 and 2025. That is the economic reality beneath the propaganda. Ukraine is not simply paying $190 million every day to fight Russia. It has sacrificed productive capacity while becoming increasingly dependent upon outside governments to keep the state functioning.

But even $588 billion for reconstruction is STILL not the true cost because this war does not stop at Ukraine’s border. Europe has spent enormous sums supporting Ukraine, expanding defense budgets, subsidizing energy, absorbing refugees, and restructuring economies around a geopolitical confrontation with Russia. Germany destroyed the foundation of its cheap-energy industrial model. European taxpayers will service debt raised to finance these programs long after Zelensky and today’s European leaders are gone. There are opportunity costs everywhere. Every billion directed toward war is capital that cannot simultaneously finance roads, hospitals, pensions, research, businesses, or tax relief.

Then there is Russia. Russia has redirected enormous resources toward military production. Its people have died as well. Its infrastructure is increasingly being targeted. Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries have now become significant enough that President Trump publicly asked Zelensky to stop hitting diesel infrastructure because disruptions are contributing to a global fuel crisis. Diesel in the United States has pushed above $6 per gallon.

There is another cost economists almost never calculate properly: CONFIDENCE. Capital does not invest where it fears war, confiscation, sanctions, destroyed infrastructure, or political instability. Investment that never happens does not appear as a bombed factory because the factory was never built. Businesses that would have existed disappear from the future without ever appearing in the statistics. Young Ukrainians who establish careers abroad may never return. Capital that once moved between Russia and Europe has been redirected elsewhere. Supply chains reorganize. International reserves change. Nations begin building alternative payment systems because they no longer trust the existing geopolitical order. Wars destroy the future as much as they destroy the present.

The World Bank says $588 billion. Ukraine says $190 million per day. The IMF says the financing gap is $140.3 billion through 2029. Brussels has another €90 billion financing package. These numbers are not necessarily false within the narrow accounting categories they measure. The deception comes when politicians pretend any one of them represents the COST OF THE WAR.

Nobody knows the true number. Nobody CAN know it. The final cost will not be known for decades because some of the largest losses have not happened yet. They will appear in the children who were never born, the businesses never created, the Ukrainians who never return, the debt future taxpayers must service, and the investment that quietly found another country. They can manufacture another estimate tomorrow. They cannot manufacture another generation.

Europeans finally get to vote! Brussels has discovered democracy. Do they get to vote on the war in Ukraine? No. Immigration? No. Sanctions on Russia? No. The endless climate regulations coming out of Brussels? No. Do they get a referendum on whether they even WANT the European Union to continue swallowing national sovereignty? Certainly not. But the European Central Bank has graciously decided that the people may express their opinion on what pictures should appear on the next euro banknotes. This is what democracy has been reduced to in Europe. You may not decide the policies that govern your life, but please select your favorite bird.

The ECB is currently allowing the public to rank ten preselected designs for the next generation of euro banknotes. The choices have already been narrowed to two themes: “European culture” and “Rivers and birds.” More than 1,200 designers originally applied, 25 were invited to produce designs, and an independent jury of 21 experts selected the ten finalists. Now the public gets its little moment of participation before the ECB Governing Council makes the FINAL decision around the end of 2026. The ECB itself says public opinion will merely be one of several inputs alongside the jury’s conclusions and a technical assessment. So even when they finally allow you to vote on the appearance of your own money, THEY STILL HAVE THE FINAL SAY.

Christine Lagarde declared that euro banknotes are “one of the most tangible expressions of Europe” and that the new designs will reinforce a “shared identity.” There is the entire problem in two words: shared identity. What identity? Europe is not a nation. It never has been. A Greek is not a Finn. An Italian is not an Estonian. A Spaniard is not a German. Europe contains different languages, histories, cultures, religions, traditions, economies, and national experiences stretching back centuries. Brussels has spent decades attempting to manufacture a single political identity from the top down, and even designing a piece of paper exposes how impossible that project really is.

Look at what they have selected for the “European culture” notes. Maria Callas appears on the €5, Beethoven on the €10, Marie Curie on the €20, Cervantes on the €50, Leonardo da Vinci on the €100, and Bertha von Suttner on the €200. Immediately you encounter the problem Brussels can never solve. Where is YOUR country? Where is YOUR history? Where is the person your nation believes represents its culture? Twenty countries use the euro, and this proposed series has only six denominations. Somebody will be excluded because there is no such thing as a single national European culture that can be represented on six pieces of paper.

They have already stumbled into controversy over something as basic as Marie Curie’s name. Polish MEP Joanna Scheuring-Wielgus objected to the way the ECB identified her and pressed the institution to recognize her Polish heritage and birth name, Skłodowska. Lagarde eventually responded that the ECB would refer to her as “Marie Curie (born Skłodowska)” while it continued considering how names might appear on the notes. There you have it. They cannot even put ONE famous European on a banknote without immediately encountering national identity because national identity actually EXISTS.

This is why the alternative is birds and rivers. The ECB’s own research found that people considered nature “neutral,” “safe,” “borderless,” and unlikely to create controversy. They have been forced toward politically neutral wildlife because depicting actual European civilization exposes the fact that Europe is composed of independent nations.

And even then Brussels cannot resist putting itself on the money. Under the “Rivers and birds” theme, the reverse sides would feature the European Parliament, European Commission, European Central Bank, Court of Justice, European Council, and European Court of Auditors. They apparently could not find enough room for every European nation, but somehow they found room for every EU bureaucracy.

The €10 would carry the European Commission. The €20 would carry the ECB. The €50 would carry the EU Court of Justice. These institutions increasingly exercise enormous power over Europeans who cannot directly remove many of the officials making the decisions. Yet the institutions themselves are being elevated into symbols worthy of appearing on the currency. The nation disappears and the bureaucracy becomes the identity.

The first euro notes avoided this problem deliberately. They depicted imaginary architectural bridges, windows, and gateways rather than actual national monuments because selecting real monuments would have immediately created political arguments over which countries were represented.

This is government by consultation rather than consent. They ask your opinion after deciding the boundaries of what you are permitted to choose. You may select Design A or Design B, but you may not question the institution making the decision. You may vote for Beethoven or a bird, but nobody asks whether the ECB should possess this degree of power in the first place.

The more Brussels attempts to force political uniformity, the stronger the resistance will become. We are watching nationalist and anti-establishment parties rise throughout Europe precisely because people do not want their nations reduced to administrative districts beneath a centralized European government. You cannot erase centuries of national identity with a regulation from Brussels or a portrait on a €20 note.

The most amusing part is that this supposed democratic exercise perfectly demonstrates why the European project is failing. They will let Europeans vote on what their money LOOKS like while the institutions retain control over what that money IS, how it is managed, and ultimately the monetary policies imposed upon every member of the eurozone.

Here is your democracy. Pick a bird.