By Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics
August 1, 2026
There are very few economic statistics that actually matter. Most of what governments publish every month is little more than political theater. They constantly revise GDP, unemployment, inflation, and virtually every other number after the headlines have faded. One measure, however, deserves attention because it tells you whether government is expanding faster than the economy that supports it.
By Charles Hugh Smith
OfTwoMinds.com
July 31, 2026
The government gets the privately collected data and in return dismantles or disables the guardrails that once protected the public from state and private-sector encroachments on privacy.
One of the core traits of a 1984-type totalitarian dystopia is 24/7 surveillance of every prisoner, oops, I mean citizen. Surveillance collects the data that leverages the tools of control: without surveillance, the structures of control do not have the data needed to monitor, track and control the populace in a profitably fine-grained manner.
Par Olivier Berruyer
Tous les gouvernements promettent le retour de la croissance. Aucun n'est fidèle à sa parole et les chiffres expliquent pourquoi. En Belgique, en Suisse et au Canada, la croissance du PIB par habitant est revenue, en 2026, à ses plus bas niveaux historiques : il faut remonter aux années 1930 pour la Belgique, à 1850 pour la Suisse et le Canada.
And Nobody's Counting the Bodies
By Milan Adams
Preppgroup
July 29, 2026
The numbers came in just after dawn on the East Coast, and they told a story that no amount of White House spin could obscure. Oil futures had stabilized at $86 per barrel overnight-a figure that would have seemed catastrophic eighteen months ago but now represented a temporary reprieve from the $119 spike that had crippled global markets in April.
By Tim Hartnett
July 29, 2026
In the July 18/19 Weekend Financial Times Jinu Koola wrote about the differences in wealth distribution and social status perception going on between Oslo and her native United States. "What," she asks, "has the dependence on meritocracy given America?" Later noting, "The economist Raj Chetty shows that only half of America's young adults earn more than their parents, down from 92 per cent in the 1940s." The article, "Norway and the case for mediocracy," takes on the question of whether so-called "meritocracy" is fair, justified or an overall benefit to society.
Schiff Sovereign
July 28, 2026
The Department of Transportation's headquarters campus in Washington spans two complexes covering 1.8 million square feet across 11-acre of prime DC real estate.
In the private sector, such a trophy office property would fetch north of $1 billion per year in rental income.
Yet for the federal government, two-thirds of the space sits empty according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government's own internal watchdog.
By Jim Quinn
The Burning Platform
July 28, 2026
"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the mo
Vijay PRASHAD
Le dollar peut sembler être une monnaie neutre, mais il est en réalité une forme de pouvoir impérial qui discipline les économies, finance les guerres et oblige le Sud Global à financer sa propre subordination.
Chères amies, chers amis,
Salutations depuis les bureaux de l'Institut Tricontinental de Recherche Sociale.
Il y a des moments dans l'histoire où un système semble si complet qu'il est difficile d'imaginer sa fin.
The dollar may appear to be a neutral currency, yet it is in fact a form of imperial power, disciplining economies, financing war, and forcing the Global South to fund its own subordination.
Dear friends,
Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental.
There are moments in history when a system appears so complete that it becomes difficult to imagine its end. When Britannia 'ruled the waves', it was thought in large parts of the world that sterling was not merely a currency but the natural language of commerce itself.