Fake money fuels real pain as elites cash in and families fall behind



Think for a moment about the “speed of life.” Two centuries ago, it took months to cross the Atlantic on a wooden ship. Today, it takes five hours by plane. The Pony Express once needed weeks to deliver a message. The telegraph shrank that to seconds.

Human ingenuity has always accelerated life, but it was still bound by reality — the limits of earth’s raw materials.

On August 15, 1971, America traded reality for illusion.

Technology built from those natural parts is real, sustainable, and grounded. But when systems detach from the real world, they become artificial. They may run for a time, but they cannot endure.

Now consider money as a form of energy. Once, it was tangible: gold coins, silver dollars, bills you could hold in your hand. Even when transactions became electronic, they were still tethered to reality, with gold as their anchor. Cotton became fabric, chickens became food, gold became money. Nature set the limits.

That changed on August 15, 1971.

Faced with economic pressures, President Richard Nixon severed the dollar from gold. In doing so, he handed America’s financial energy supply to the Federal Reserve and the political class — a system now untethered from nature. Money no longer reflected real value. It was conjured from nothing. Now the government, once dependent on the real economy, had the power to create its own artificial economy.

You can’t print money to pay your bills. You live in reality. Washington escaped it — at least temporarily. The result is a false economy where the supply of “financial energy” outruns the natural world.

The treadmill effect

That’s why ordinary Americans feel like they are running on a treadmill that only speeds up. The $37 trillion in so-called “debt” isn’t debt at all. Debt requires repayment. It is the measure of money created out of thin air. When fake energy collides with real commodities, prices rise.

Look around you. Everything in your home — your chair, your phone, your groceries — is either a commodity or built from one. Oil powers the machinery that produces and delivers them. Since 2000, the cost of commodities has risen about 8% every year. Wages, in contrast, have only risen about 3% annually. That gap explains why families can’t keep up, why the middle class shrinks, and why frustration mounts. And because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, this inflation doesn’t just punish Americans — it ripples out to every nation on earth.

The burnout economy

Think of the human body. It runs on about six volts of electricity. Plug it into 220 volts and you’ll get incredible output — briefly — before the system burns out. That’s what the Federal Reserve and political elites have done to our economy: forced humanity into hyper-speed, compressing decades of natural economic activity into a few frantic years. The result is burnout — social unrest, inequality, rage, endless wars, and declining health.

Even environmental strain ties back to this misalignment. Artificial money fuels artificial demand, driving overproduction and overconsumption. Elites congratulate themselves for “managing” the system while ordinary citizens pay the price — in higher bills, weaker wages, and a constant sense of instability.

This was not inevitable. For nearly two centuries, the dollar was worth 100 cents, because it was tied to gold. Today, it’s worth about three cents. The rest has been stolen — not from us, but from the future. Tomorrow’s dollars are being dragged into yesterday’s spending. But eventually, nothing will be left to plunder. That is the endgame of artificial money: a collision between illusion and reality.

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Most Americans don’t fully understand this, but they feel it in their bones. They sense that something is wrong, that they work harder only to fall farther behind. Artificial money creates artificial problems — and artificial problems have no real solutions. Only a reckoning with reality can set them right.

Reclaim reality

Elites in Washington and on Wall Street will not save us. They are the ones benefiting from the distortion. The rest of us are left to adapt. For many, that means simplifying life, rediscovering the virtues of family, community, and localism — the parts of America still tethered to reality. In the countryside, where life is slower, you can still glimpse the America that once was.

On August 15, 1971, America traded reality for illusion. The day Nixon closed the gold window, government and elites unshackled themselves from the limits the rest of us still live under. Until we recognize that truth, we will keep chasing solutions to problems that can’t be solved — because they were never real to begin with.

DC’s crime problem is much worse than you think



After building a reputation for cutting federal jobs in Washington, D.C., the Department of Government Efficiency is now tied to an expansion of federal authority.

President Trump announced Monday he would take over Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard — an unprecedented move that came less than a week after photos of a shirtless, bloodied 19-year-old former DOGE employee went viral. The president declared August 11 “Liberation Day” and vowed to end violent crime and homeless encampments in the nation’s capital.

Our nation’s capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.

Trump’s detractors immediately pointed out that violent crime, including shootings and homicides, has been falling in the district. They’re right — on paper. Violent crime is down 26% this year, according to the city’s own numbers. But those figures are under scrutiny after accusations that officials manipulated the data.

Homicides, which are harder to fudge, are down 12%: 99 killings through August 11 compared to 112 during the same period in 2024.

Numbers alone, however, can’t capture the lived reality. Having spent the last year of my 15-year career in D.C. at the city’s Office of Gun Violence Prevention, I spoke with residents desperate for change. One man told me he and his pregnant wife dove to the floor when a bullet smashed through their window. Another woman worked with neighbors to demand more police patrols. Their frustrations highlight the fact that crime isn’t just a local issue but a hyperlocal one.

One activist I met has kept a memorial wall for homicide victims in his apartment since the 1990s. Some of the kids he mentored, he said, cherished the photos and videos because they were the only images they had of their fathers. In D.C., more than 60% of murders happen in just two of the city’s eight wards — far from tourist landmarks and high-end retail stores. Last August, a Democrat council member from one of those neighborhoods called for the National Guard himself after a wave of shootings.

Yet, those communities — overwhelmingly poor and black — rarely drive the political conversation about crime. Conservatives, like progressives, focus on the violence and vagrancy near their offices, homes, and favorite restaurants. That’s not a criticism; it’s human nature.

Everyone wants to feel safe where they live, work, and visit. But people from places where one murder makes front-page news can’t easily grasp how easy it is to grow numb to constant violence and disorder.

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The left has its own contradictions. Leftists had no problem with the FBI combing through a NASCAR garage when they thought driver Bubba Wallace had been the target of a hate crime. More than 90% of D.C.’s homicide victims are black, yet racial inequality in violent crime barely registers among self-described antiracists.

Likewise, in 2021, commentator Roland Martin demanded a federal crackdown on “white domestic terrorism.” But he didn’t explain how many murder victims in D.C., Baltimore, St. Louis, Memphis, Philadelphia, Atlanta, New Orleans, or Chicago were killed by skinheads or neo-Nazis.

Whether the federal takeover will reduce crime remains to be seen. Conservatives frustrated by the government’s inability to produce the Epstein files might be overestimating how quickly crime can be cleaned up. Real change will require coordination across every level of government.

Still, my hope is simple: that whatever is done in D.C. will make it safer for residents, workers, and visitors alike. Our capital should project security and order to the nation and the world. It must be made safe again.

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American families thrived under Trump’s tax plan — don’t kill it



As families faced a 20% spike in inflation under President Joe Biden, it’s no surprise that a strong majority of voters oppose new tax increases.

According to new polling from the Independent Women’s Forum, 79% of likely voters in the 2026 midterm elections support extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That includes 80% of seniors, 78% of women, and 78% of independent voters.

The American people desire a simpler, fairer tax system.

Across all demographics, women voiced strong support for keeping the tax cuts in place. A majority agreed that Congress should act to stop individual income tax rates from rising in January 2026.

While inflation has begun to fall under President Trump, including last month’s slowest core inflation rate in nearly four years, more action is needed to keep prices moving downward.

Two-thirds of voters agree that now is not the time to raise taxes. That includes 65% of women and 70% of voters ages 18 to 34, who say high prices and high interest rates make additional tax increases unacceptable.

Tax cuts boosted incomes

The results speak for themselves. By 2019, median household income reached a record high of $68,703. That same year, 4.2 million Americans — many in female-headed households — rose out of poverty, bringing the national poverty rate to a record low.

A major factor was the drop in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Workers, who often shoulder the burden of corporate taxes, saw immediate gains. In response to the rate cut, many companies invested directly in their employees by raising wages, issuing bonuses, expanding benefits, funding job training programs, and creating new positions.

These changes suggest the tax law not only supported American families but also helped drive job growth and a stronger economy.

George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen reported in July — more than six years after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act took effect — that as a result of the law, “Total tangible corporate investment went up by about 11%” and “there has been a long-run increase in GDP of 0.9% — a substantial sum in an economy of more than $27 trillion.”

Small businesses thrive

Small businesses are the backbone of the U.S. economy. These "pass-through" businesses — such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, and S-corporations — are taxed at individual income tax rates. They employ nearly half of the American workforce and represent almost 44% of America’s gross domestic product.

Before the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, some small businesses filing under the individual income tax code faced tax rates as high as 39.6%. Less than a year after the law’s enactment, the National Federation of Independent Business’s small-business optimism index hit the highest level ever recorded during its 45-year history. The previous record was set during Ronald Reagan’s tenure.

Now, small businesses face a looming challenge: The 20% small business deduction expires at the end of this year, which could significantly increase their tax burden. This deduction was designed to ease tax burdens on small and midsized businesses just as C-corporations benefited from the corporate tax rate cut.

Tax cuts help people and small businesses. As demonstrated after the 2017 tax cuts, extending them will ease inflationary pressures by lowering business costs, raising wages, and strengthening workers’ ability to withstand economic shocks.

The voters have spoken

Our polling found 59% of likely voters — including 77% of Trump voters — agree that “The 2017 tax cuts contributed to lower prices for shoppers before inflation kicked up in 2021.” This view resonated with young voters particularly, with 64% of likely voters ages 18 to 34 in agreement. This sentiment may explain the notable shift among younger voters toward Trump during the 2024 presidential election.

The American people desire a simpler, fairer tax system, and enacting sensible reforms, extensions, and updates to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will do just that.

The timing, public sentiment, data, and legal pathway are aligned. It’s time for Congress to pass additional tax reforms for America.

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