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The financial crisis of 2008/09 was the most significant event to happen in my lifetime. That episode, coupled with the deeply unethical and corrupt response to it, led to a direct delegitimization of governments and institutions worldwide. It's precisely this self-inflicted destruction of credibility which opened up the window for the birthing of a new monetary and financial system in the wake of Bitcoin's emergence in early 2009.

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe — "That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.
- Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

We have millions of people who are warehoused in almost a larval state in their apartments, watching tv, paying for their medical plans, and glued to this mindless opera of cultural decay that's recited day after day in front of them. I mean, it's horrible to imagine -- and this is a creation to some degree of the world corporate state, that probably has to be addressed. 
- Terence McKenna, The Internet is the Cure for TV (1994)

I want to really think differently than the very consistent liberal-media line of, Well if they just knew better they would vote differently. They’re under-informed, they’re under-educated. I think it really misunderstands something, which is that, just because people are not acting rationally in accordance with what you think is rational, doesn’t mean that they’re not acting rationally. And I think there’s perfectly rational voter behavior in voting for Trump. For economic reasons and social reasons. 

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. … Most of us are about as eager to change as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.
- James Baldwin
2017 has been a really strange year for me. As tens of millions of my fellow Americans have experienced mental breakdowns following the election of Donald Trump, an unexpected sense of calm has come over me and I can't remember the last time I was this optimistic about the future.

"The electric light did not come from the continuous improvement of candles.”
-- Oren Harari

Unsurprisingly, the Republican tax plan moving forward in the U.S. Congress and championed by Donald "Drain the Swamp" Trump, is very swampy. Today's post will highlight a few examples.
First, let's hear some of what billionaire fund manager Jeffrey Gundlach had to say. Via Bloomberg:

It wasn't until earlier this year that I became really concerned about Amazon. Sure, I had warned people previously of the dangers of an oligarch like Jeff Bezos owning a major national newspaper like The Washington Post, and I'd also highlighted Amazon's creepy $600 million contract with the CIA, but I didn't truly grasp the bigger picture until recently.

Two years ago, German intelligence warned the world of the unique risks Saudi Arabia posed to the region. I covered it at the time in the post, German Intelligence Warns – Saudi Arabia to Play “Destabilizing Role” in the Middle East. Here's an excerpt:

I didn't spend all week writing about the gigantic tremors occurring in the Middle East because I thought it was fun. If I'm even remotely correct in my analysis, the entire world will be affected and shaped for decades to come by what's about to go down in the region. Rather than rehash what I already wrote, I suggest you take a read of the following if you missed them the first time around.