Free Republic

Nearly 60% of Germans would likely not take up arms to defend their country if attacked, according to a new survey conducted for German broadcaster RND, The Telegraph reported. Only 16% said they would "definitely" fight, and 22% said they "probably" would. The findings present a serious challenge to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who is spearheading efforts to rearm Germany and expand the Bundeswehr….

China's massive, potentially undeclared, gold reserves could challenge the dollar's dominance, says expert Craig Hemke. In a recent interview on The Deep Dive, prominent precious metals analyst Craig Hemke of TF Metals Report delved into the escalating US-China trade tensions and the intriguing possibility of China amassing a significantly larger gold reserve than officially reported. Hemke, a respected voice in the precious metals market with over 15 years of experience, offered a compelling analysis suggesting that China's strategic accumulation of gold could be a key factor in a potential shift away from the US dollar's global dominance. The interview, hosted...

Do you remember about 6 months ago when President Trump and Elon Musk and DOGE were talking about auditing the gold in Fort Knox? Or even just going in there to look around? It sounded like it was going to happen imminently and then nothing ever happened. A new theory has emerged from Ed Dowd, who you might recognize. Ed did terrific work during COVID exposing many of the fake narratives back in 2020-era, and now he’s back with a theory he’s calling the “White Swan Collapse” and what’s really going on with Fort Knox. I’ll just tell you the...

Rumors are circulating that the United States may begin to print $500 bills. The US Bureau of Engraving and Printing began printing $500 bills in 1861 until 1945, formally discontinuing them in 1969 when Nixon moved to close the gold window. The US Treasury has since required banks to send all $500 bills back to them to be destroyed, as the government claimed higher-denominated notes paved the way for criminal activity. Collectors know that the US Treasury issued $1,000, $5,000, $10,000, and even $100,000 notes once upon a time. The $100,000 bill featured President Woodrow Wilson and was issued as...

America is desperate for rare earth minerals. China was supplying the US with around 70% of all such minerals, but they’re not going to supply them to an enemy nation to create weapons. As I mentioned yesterday, this is precisely why America is desperate to access Ukraine. I received a few comments asking why the US has not begun digging, and unfortunately, they are unable to reach those crucial minerals due to the ongoing war. It is estimated that Ukraine holds 5% of the world’s critical raw materials. Ukrainian officials believe they have 19 million tonnes of graphite reserves and...

Economic warfare is dismantling free trade and turning friends into foes. This has nothing to do with trade tariffs, as the issue is the tariffs we are placing on nations for the sole purpose of political policy. The US is threatening India with sanctions if it continues to purchase Russian oil, and the Kremlin is using that to its advantage. “We believe that sovereign countries should have, and have the right to choose their own trade partners, partners in trade and economic cooperation. And to choose those trade and economic cooperation regimes that are in the interests of a particular...

The United States is preparing to launch the Golden Dome project, a large-scale missile defense system to actively shield the nation against all threats by space, land, and sea. Inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome system and Reagan’s historic Strategic Defense Initiative, the Golden Dome would be the largest missile defense system in American history. Donald Trump first proposed the idea in January 2025, but plans are underway to complete the project by the end of Trump’s second term. “They want a win to point to in November [2028],” a defense official told CNN. “And DoD [Department of Defense] wants to...

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s next step toward making America Healthy again is an outright ban on thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, found in common vaccines. “I’m proud to finally deliver on a long-overdue promise: protecting our most vulnerable from unnecessary mercury exposure,” Kennedy stated on a video posted on X, noting that the chemical is a known neurotoxin that has been administered to millions of Americans. The former director of the FDA, Willian Egan, admitted in 2001 that the safety of this preservative had never been studied. The government simply allowed the pharmaceutical agencies to incorporate it in vaccines...

This is the problem. Whitaker’s arrogance thinks that the US is so powerful that it can crush Russia without ever firing a shot and calling Putin “sick and twisted” when we started this war, and there were TWO peace deals which the WEST broke – not Russia. I have NEVER in my entire life witnessed such INCOMPETENT diplomacy. The Neocons have been instructing Trump to be strong and yield nothing to Putin, and he will fold. Peace is easy. Just HONOR the Minsk Agreement. But this is a war to destroy Russia, and Trump is a fool who is being...

The United States stands on the brink of an unprecedented transformer shortage that threatens to derail President Trump’s ambitious plans for AI-driven reindustrialization. With wait times for electrical transformers now stretching to 3–5 years—compared to just 4–6 weeks in 2020—manufacturers warn of "catastrophic" grid instability as power demands skyrocket from new data centers, factories, and infrastructure projects. The bottleneck stems from Trump’s aggressive trade policies, including a 25% tariff on India (the world’s largest transformer producer, making 60% of global supply) and looming 100% penalties on China (which produces another 20%). The Transformer Shortage: A Ticking Time Bomb Transformers are...

MOSCOW (AP) — President Vladimir Putin said Friday that Russia has started production of its newest hypersonic missiles and reaffirmed its plans to deploy them to ally Belarus later this year. Sitting alongside Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko on Valaam Island near St. Petersburg, Putin said the military already has selected deployment sites in Belarus for the Oreshnik intermediate range ballistic missile.… Putin has praised the Oreshnik’s capabilities, saying its multiple warheads that plunge to a target at speeds up to Mach 10 are immune to being intercepted and are so powerful that the use of several of them in one...

President Donald Trump on Friday blasted former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, saying, “Words are very important, and can often lead to unintended consequences. I hope this will not be one of those instances.” Trum,p then ordered U.S. nuclear submarines to be moved following Medvedev’s comments: “Trump’s playing the ultimatum game with Russia: 50 days or 10. … He should remember 2 things: 1. Russia isn’t Israel or even Iran. 2. Each new ultimatum is a threat and a step towards war,” Medvedev wrote on X. “Not between Russia and Ukraine, but with his own country.” I’m sorry, but the words...

Most of the US allies continue to buy Russian gas even after the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War. The EU and NATO member states are close to Washington, and they have bought natural gas worth hundreds of billions of dollars from Moscow since the beginning of the war. Has President Donald Trump exposed the US hypocrisy over trade by imposing a 25% tariff on Indian goods plus a penalty for doing business with Russia? Though he has not said explicitly what it means and how much penalty India will have to pay for buying crude oil and military hardware from...

The fact that Trump is threatening sanctions against India for buying Russian oil and to hammer Russia to somehow force Putin to his knees and accept whatever terms Europe demands, proves that Trump is now taking advice from Lindsey Grachm, NATO, their puppet EU leaders, and the Neocons with the likes of Cheney in the background witgh a HUGE smile on her face. When we look at sanctions, history shows us that this Neocon tool that they always deploy out of hatred, has never worked even once. It just makes the Neocons feel all warm and fussy inside as they...

ran across a 2021 meme the other day that vividly illustrates just how quickly the government is destroying your money. The meme points out that in 1964, the minimum wage was $1.25, or five quarters. That sounds really low, but keep in mind that before 1965, quarters were 90 percent silver. In 2021, the melt value of those five quarters was $23.34. In other words, the five quarters a minimum wage worker earned in an hour in 1964 had $23.34 in purchasing power in 2021. There's your "living wage." That’s pretty staggering in and of itself, but now fast forward...

Zelensky signs law allowing Ukrainians over age 60 to enlist in army Deputy Irina Gerashchenko noted that the law does not clearly specify how the approval procedure for candidates would work, opening the door for potential abuses MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/. Vladimir Zelensky has signed a law increasing the age limit for military service, potentially allowing seniors over 60 to enlist, the website of the Verkhovna Rada parliament said. On July 16, the Rada adopted the law in the second reading by 306 votes. Deputy Irina Gerashchenko explained that it would allow those who have already turned 60 to sign...

The Democrats official X account posted a chart featuring US grocery inflation. The intent was to show the public that prices had reached record highs in 2025 under the Trump Administration; however, the graphic actually revealed the culprit for the rise in food prices. Grocery prices skyrocketed in 2021, a year into the pandemic. Supply chain shortages were abundant, shipping docks were at a standstill, and countless food producers were forced to shutter their businesses to adhere to social distancing guidelines. World trade temporarily halted. We then had the Ukraine war breakout in 2022, disrupting Europe’s bread basket. Poor weather...

With the Trump Administration headed down the road to higher inflation and the political chaos that results, it is worth asking why there are “only” $4 trillion in notional crypto tokens, this according to the Financial Times. The rise of bitcoin and other ethereal instruments evidences a strong desire on the part of many Americans to escape a sinking ship, but also confirms the love for creating new games to enable speculation. Are the crypto tokens really a way to avoid the demise of fiat dollars? As we noted in a recent comment in The Institutional Risk Analyst, the best...

The Neocons are in complete control of Europe, and it is starting to appear that they have turned Trump’s head as well into promoting their endless wars when every last one of them should be thrown in prison for life without parole for TREASON – the usurpation of American Foreign Policy for personal objectives. It was Garland who weaponized the DOJ to try to prevent Trump from winning in 2024 to keep their war-mongering objectives in play. The Ukrainian people have been the pawns in this NEOCON war. What are they fighting for? The Minsk Agreement was intended to allow...

For today's column, we have something a little bit different. Because while there is certainly plenty happening that is worthy of comment, I'm not sure it would be possible to put it all in better context than how Luke Gromen just did in the interview I recorded with him yesterday. This is the one I mentioned on Tuesday, that is perhaps the episode of the Arcadia Economics YouTube channel that I've been most looking forward to in the entire time I've been doing the show. So I've posted the gold and silver charts below, but rather than writing any more...