American support for Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War was the catalyst for the OPEC embargo, which caused the first oil shock. The oil price roughly quadrupled, from around $3 per barrel to about $12 in a matter of days. It immediately triggered an energy crisis. There were gas shortages and panic in the US as drivers sat in lines stretching for blocks, waiting to fill their gas tanks. The second oil shock followed in 1979 as crude prices nearly tripled. A large conflict in the Middle East was again the cause—the Iranian Revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War. A third oil shock occurred in 1990 as Iraq invaded Kuwait, causing oil prices to more than double. Here’s the bottom line. Big Middle East wars are often catastrophic for global oil supplies. And supply disruptions cause price spikes. It’s a simple relationship. This isn’t surprising. Analysts estimate that over 40% of global oil exports come from the Middle East. Today, the Middle East is again on the cusp of a large regional war between Iran and its allies and Israel and its allies. The conflict could potentially be more destructive than the conflicts that caused the prior oil shocks.

Financial Underground

Middle East Wars and Oil Shocks

A big war is highly likely, with significant implications that would be foolish to ignore.

A $250 Million War Game and Its Shocking Outcome

Financial Underground

How Iran Sank the US Navy in a $250 Million War Game

The US is on the precipice of its biggest war since Vietnam.

.@`saifedean` "Israel's claim to Palestinian land based on Israelis having descended from inhabitants of the land 2,000 years ago is absurd. Property rights are individual, not ethnic. There is no sane way of establishing a peaceful civilized society if property rights were subject to dispute by collective entities with vague ancient tales. Civilization can only function if individual property rights are respected and pre-1948, anyone of any religion could own land in Palestine and the system of property rights was accepted by all inhabitants. European Zionist migrants to Palestine accepted the legitimacy of the system of property rights prevalent there and bought many properties from the locals. They then decided these property rights are invalid, massacred and expelled Palestinians, and refused to allow them to return to their property. No matter what the ethnic history of the land is, nothing justifies these crimes. Yet what makes them even more absurd is that the Zionist claim based on ethnicity doesn't even survive simple genetic analysis: Palestinians are genetically closer to the inhabitants of Palestine 2,000 years ago than the European Zionists who expelled and murdered them based on their supposed ethnicity. And so today more than 90% of the land controlled by Israel is owned by the Israel Land Authority, a government agency that only allocates it to people who identify as Jewish, regardless of their link to ancient descendants, while denying property rights to the locals who descended from the original inhabitants. Property rights are the root of this conflict, and not some insane nonsense about religions hating each other. Muslims, Jews, and Christians coexisted peacefully for hundreds of years in Palestine as long as they all had the right to property. Zionism made property rights available only to adherents of a political movement claiming to be an ethno-religious group, and there hasn't been peace since." -Saifedean Ammous

The Top 10 Bitcoin Misconceptions Debunked https://financialunderground.com/articles/the-top-10-bitcoin-misconceptions-debunked/

For thousands of years, gold has always been mankind’s hardest money. That is all set to change in a matter of months, and most people have no idea. https://financialunderground.com/articles/harder-than-gold-faster-than-fiat-2/

I'll be speaking at the upcoming Expat Money online summit. Check it out!

Expat Money Summit 2023

Expat Money Summit 2023

Securing Your New Life Abroad

If EVs were simply government-subsidized status symbols for wealthy liberals who want to virtue signal how they think they’re saving the planet, that would be bad enough. But chances are, the big push for EVs represents something much worse.

Financial Underground

3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles

They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

The people really in charge do not want the average person to have genuine freedom of movement or access to independent power sources. They want to know everything, keep you dependent, and have the ability to control everything, just like how a farmer would with his cattle. They think of you in similar terms. That’s why gasoline vehicles have to go and why they are trying to herd us into electric vehicles.

Financial Underground

3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles

They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

Why are governments going all out to push an obviously uneconomic scam that are electric vehicles? While they are undoubtedly corrupt thieves and simply stupid, something more nefarious could also be at play.

Financial Underground

3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles

They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

The electric vehicle market is a giant mirage artificially propped up by extensive government intervention.

Financial Underground

3 Reasons There’s Something Sinister With the Big Push for Electric Vehicles

They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

Governments, the media, academia, large corporations, and celebrities tout an imminent “transition” to electric vehicles as if it’s preordained from above. It’s not. They’re trying to manufacture your consent for a scam of almost unimaginable proportions.

When the average person hears “fossil fuels,” they think of a dirty technology that belongs in the 1800s. Many believe they are burning dead dinosaurs to power their cars. They also think fossil fuels will run out soon and destroy the planet within a decade. None of these absurd things are true, but many people believe them. Using misleading and vague language plays a large role. I suggest expunging “fossil fuels” from your vocabulary in favor of hydrocarbons—a much better and more precise word.

In warfare, the loser is likely to be the country that goes broke first.

Doug Casey's International Man

The Outcome of War with Russia

Much has been said and is being said regarding the proxy war between the US and Russia.

Prices are never going back to the levels they were. It's a new baseline that only gets adjusted higher. It’s like trying to run on a treadmill where the speed only ratchets up.

Financial Underground

How Inflation Is Destroying America—and What You Can Do About It

How runaway inflation is pushing the nation toward an irreversible economic and political collapse—and what you can do to protect yourself.

It’s only a matter of time before “fight for $15″—the rallying cry for a $15 minimum wage—becomes “fight for $20.” Then it’s “fight for $50,” “fight for $100,” and so forth. People should really fight to end the Federal Reserve and the fake money they create out of thin air and force everyone else to use. It’s the only way to end this insidious cycle that impoverishes everyone except the politically-connected insiders closest to the money printing.

Financial Underground

How Inflation Is Destroying America—and What You Can Do About It

How runaway inflation is pushing the nation toward an irreversible economic and political collapse—and what you can do to protect yourself.

@Michael Saylor was absolutely correct when he said: "The road to serfdom consists of working exponentially harder to earn a currency that is growing exponentially weaker.”

A trillion is a massive, almost unfathomable number. The human brain has trouble understanding something so huge. So let me try to put it into perspective. If you earned $1 a second 24/7/365—about $31 million per year—it would take you over 31,688 YEARS to make $1 trillion. So that’s how enormous a trillion is. When politicians carelessly spend and print money measured in the trillions, you are in dangerous territory.

Financial Underground

How Inflation Is Destroying America—and What You Can Do About It

How runaway inflation is pushing the nation toward an irreversible economic and political collapse—and what you can do to protect yourself.

BlackRock, Bitcoin, and a Tsunami of Institutional Demand MicroStrategy Chairman Michael Saylor recently said, “The window to front-run institutional demand for Bitcoin is closing.” He’s absolutely correct. BlackRock, Fidelity, Schwab, Citadel Securities, and other large institutions are making big moves into Bitcoin. With nearly $10 trillion in assets under management, BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager. Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, had a remarkable turnaround regarding his views of Bitcoin. After years of dismissing and denigrating it, Fink recently called Bitcoin “an international asset” to hedge against currency debasement that could “digitize gold” and “revolutionize finance.” BlackRock has filed for a spot Bitcoin ETF. BlackRock has an ETF approval track record of 575-1, so it is probably a matter of time before their spot Bitcoin ETF is approved and potentially others. That would open the floodgates for certain large pools of capital—like traditional retirement accounts—that would be otherwise unable to buy Bitcoin. Let me be clear. I am no fan of Fink, BlackRock, and the nefarious agendas they push. Frankly, I’d like to see BlackRock go bankrupt and Fink clean toilets to earn a living. However, it’s important to remember that Bitcoin is an apolitical, open, permissionless monetary network available to anyone and controlled by none. Nobody can be prevented from using Bitcoin. Bitcoin is for everyone, including people you don’t like. Some worry that BlackRock could change Bitcoin somehow, but that is unfounded. Remember, nobody can change Bitcoin’s protocol—not even Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, the Chinese government, the US government, or any of these powerful entities combined. Even if Satoshi Nakamoto—Bitcoin’s anonymous cypherpunk creator—returned after disappearing in 2011, he could not alter Bitcoin. The Blocksize Wars, which culminated in 2017, is proof. That’s when an overwhelming majority of the Bitcoin miners (primarily based in China)—and other prominent insiders and large companies—tried to get together and change Bitcoin’s protocol to increase the block size. Even though they represented most Bitcoin miners, some of the most powerful insiders, prominent influencers, and large corporations, their attempted hostile takeover was an abysmal and embarrassing failure. Instead of forcing a destructive change in Bitcoin—as they desired—they just created an increasingly worthless knock-off known as Bitcoin Cash. Recently, the market cap of Bitcoin Cash (BCH) was less than 1% of the real Bitcoin’s (BTC) and is trending towards 0%. I wouldn’t worry too much about BlackRock trying to make an “ESG Bitcoin” or otherwise changing it. Even if they were foolish enough to do so, I doubt it would be more successful than Bitcoin Cash. Another worry about BlackRock is that they will manipulate the Bitcoin price by creating more claims on it than what actually exists. They could sell some fake paper Bitcoin, but it would fail spectacularly and be self-destructive. Suppose someone like BlackRock wants to manipulate the price of an asset by creating more claims on it than what actually exists. Taking physical delivery of the underlying asset would be one way to reveal the fraud. If there are more claims than actually exist, asking for physical delivery will reveal it because the delivery will fail. Think of taking physical delivery like calling the manipulator’s bluff. It’s challenging to take delivery of physical commodities traded on large exchanges, which opens the door to creating more claims than actually exist. It’s not easy to call their bluffs. However, with Bitcoin, taking delivery is as simple as sending an email. If anyone is idiotic enough to create more claims to Bitcoin than actually exist, revealing the fraud will be much easier than with other assets. If BlackRock or some other entity tries this stunt, consider it a gift. You’ll be able to accumulate more Bitcoin at artificially lower prices until their Ponzi Scheme inevitably blows up. Here’s the bottom line. BlackRock’s colossal shift on Bitcoin indicates that big institutions could soon flood in. It’s a powerful potential tailwind for Bitcoin. I think we could be on the cusp of Bitcoin’s next upside explosion. That’s why I’ve just released an urgent PDF report revealing three crucial Bitcoin techniques to ensure you avoid the most common—sometimes fatal—mistakes.

Financial Underground

Survive and Thrive During the Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 Years—3 Strategies You Need Right Now

Survive and Thrive During the Most Dangerous Economic Crisis in 100 YearsDownload the free PDF guide below and discover the top 3 strategies you ne...

I am no fan of Fink, BlackRock, and the nefarious agendas they push. Frankly, I’d like to see BlackRock go bankrupt and Fink clean toilets to earn a living. However, it’s important to remember that Bitcoin is an apolitical, open, permissionless monetary network available to anyone and controlled by none. Nobody can be prevented from using Bitcoin. Bitcoin is for everyone, including people you don’t like. https://financialunderground.com/articles/blackrock-bitcoin-and-a-tsunami-of-institutional-demand/

As the de-banking trend accelerates, there’s never been a time when it’s been riskier NOT to own Bitcoin. More and more people will discover Bitcoin as the best alternative to the rotten banking system.

Financial Underground

De-Banked: It’s Only a Matter of Time Before It Happens to You

Explore the disturbing trend of de-banking, how governments and elites are using it to control narratives, and discover how to safeguard your finan...