Ruprecht the MB

A letter to my boys, on the topic of education open.substack.com/pub/dauphingre…

Once again @extradeadjcb nails it. Seems like a follow on companion piece to his earlier one on why the anti left is useless. Every single sincere conservative needs to read both of these.

OK - its a very convoluted picture / history but I get the thrust of it. Note: I am well educated and by most standards, intelligent. If I struggle to make sense of it, then doubtless it is lost on a big chunk of MAGA folks. It almost seems as if a necessary part of the 'plan' is that there will be pain, lots of it, and suffering. But that is the only way to reset things meaningfully. Out of that will emerge a new order that leaves the old oligarchy and banking cabal in a subservient position. Is that a fair statement(s)? What is the alt 'path?' - voting our way out...? No - we know 'they' will do everything possible to hold power. Tks for your input.

This is a now 5 year process. Read my tweets from this morning... x.com/TFL1728/status… Read the article it links to. Start with the article, then reread the tweet. Then read this tweet: x.com/TFL1728/status… Sprinkle in a few recent podcasts, like the ones with @TFTC21 and @theandymillette and you should have a pretty strong picture of the board. Trump's speech last night confirms all of this, in statecraft terms.

President Trump was exactly right tonight. Operation Epic Fury is an investment in the future of our children and our grandchildren. We are on the cusp of ending Iran’s nuclear blackmail — that makes America much, much safer.

You are caricaturing the wrong people. We/I are MAGA; we understand and believe that financial / banking interests are / have been deeply embedded in all of these things and largely responsible for conflict / chaos over the past centuries / decades. We don't get our information / opinion from TV or MSM. But within our camp we are very divided; most are inclined to think this is a disaster that the neo-con zionist cohort in Trump's orbit hoodwinked him into; a smaller % are giving him more leeway and open to a version of Tom's argument. But it is not straightforward and if it is not clearly articulated or presented then how can we get behind it? Blind trust the plan? We are past that, unfortunately - after Covid, after Jan 6, after stolen elections, after no arrrests or accountability of anyone, etc.

@TFL1728 @RupMonk29 @chrismartenson @JeffLee2020 @SenTedCruz People want to believe their TV land version of current events, will not look outside of it, then want to argue & call names & the older they are the smaller the mind 100s of books available over the last 100 yrs but most will not read them. TV & MSM is their religion & truth

Tom... Maga guy here, anti-libertarian.  Struggling to come to terms with the situation in Iran.  I'm sympathetic to the notion that Trump is trying to unseat and disrupt the old order.  That he really is playing 3D chess.  Is there a well articulated version of your argument in writing even if it's long or in multiple pieces? Would give a lot of like minded folks who are otherwise massive Trump supporters a little more comfort.  If it's behind a paywall it defeats the whole point there are millions of us who need to know what's really going on and don't quite understand right now.  Absent that I we are inclined to think that it is what many claim ie Trump got pulled into this whole thing by Israel and doesn't know how to get out.

Chris, you are good with data. You are terrible at statecraft. No offense intended, but “evidence” is not relevant here. We can debate why that is, but it is true. So, this isn’t debate club, nor a scientific roundtable and experimental results discussion. I’ve been in that room. Been the least credentialed person in it, and dominated those discussions. You are simply taking the wrong approach to justify what is ultimately your morality, which does you credit. But, it is inapplicable to this problem

@TheApeOfGoldST @DonDurrett @thebigugly2024 My valuation has it ~$15/share in 2028 @ $8K Au. That would be nice.

@DonDurrett @thebigugly2024 As long as it’s a 22x within 5y I take it. Gold should be 15-20k in 5y, so 22x should be a nothing burger in 3-4y? 👀

$TUD.v - Tudor Gold When the #Bull is back on, Tud will go on a massive run once and for all. #GOLD

Lol. This is just like the erp craze in the early 2000s. I was working for a Japanese corporation and I remember when the Fancy pants consultant came in and gave his pitch on the erp implementation. The Japanese guy said great how much are you going to pay us for this implementation? The consultant said excuse me? The Japanese guy asked him how many implementations he had done in our industry. Zero was the response. So in other words said the Japanese guy you want me to pay you so that you can learn everything about my business while you implement the software, so that you can then go and approach other players in my industry with all that knowledge that you got for free? Lol

@thesamparr Family businesses that ran fine for forty years suddenly need AI because a guy on Twitter told them so. The consultant shows up, charges six figures, and the family learns what their youngest employee could have told them over lunch.

My buddy runs a company helping manufactures implement ai. He showed me the leads he’s getting. It’s nuts. Family businesses I’ve never heard of making $100m a year. They know the need ai but no idea what to do. Crazy how much momey is out there

@Indian_Bronson What... Which enabled him to become a world-class scam artist who rug pulled everybody on his b******* Alzheimer's company that his mother needed to vouch for? If you're going to make the argument for this sriver class you need to find someone other than him as an example model.

Just a warning, though, this requires you to do the very “third world” “striver” thing of ‘studying’ and you might briefly see flashes of Vivek Ramaswamy telling you to study!

@NickNemo17 cc @JoinCrowdHealth

UnitedHealthcare is the biggest health insurer in the country. Nearly half of its premiums don't go to your care — they get paid to companies UnitedHealth owns. They insure you, then pay themselves to treat you. One of those companies runs hundreds of dialysis clinics. Meanwhile, the "independent" dialysis chains? Mostly owned by private equity — Carlyle, Bain Capital, Centerbridge. More PE firms are buying up the kidney doctors' practices upstream. So if you need dialysis in America: the insurer, the clinic, the equipment maker, and now your doctor may all answer to the same financial interests. This is not healthcare. This is a toll road.

@christopherrufo Chris - advice to you re this debate w Hoe: when you find yourself in a hole.......

They're actually arguing that it would be better to be a slave in the 1800s than to live in America in the 1990s

This is somewhat true, but I think it needs some further clarification. What has been revealed in the last few months / yrs is that the adage that power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, has the causality backwards. The truth is that power attracts corruptible people, in the same way that alcohol is esp. dangerous to those who have an innate predisposition to it. Some people get drunk easier b/c they lack the ability to process it and are more susceptible to it; the same applies to power. Very ambitious people are also very corrupt / corruptible. They are selected into the higher club circles precisely for that reason. An intelligent and inexperienced person has cannot be controlled; they have not yet been profiled so as to discern their corruptibility. If they get tagged as "not a team player" - i.e. not going to play ball when they are asked to corrupt themselves and other - very likely they don't get elevated.

The kryptonite to bureaucracy is high intelligence and "inexperience". When we grow up in systems that cage us, our sensitivity to the absurdity of the bureaucrat weakens. We are like frogs slowly boiling to death. So that by the time you hit every gate on the way up, you're just an obedient slave. Because your success was contingent upon making the system happy. Smart but “inexperienced” people scare the hell out of a bureaucracy not because they’re reckless, but because they’re not conditioned. If you grow up inside a system long enough, you stop seeing it clearly. The delays start to make sense. The process starts to make sense. Even the nonsense starts to feel normal. That’s how it survives. Not by being right, but by being way too familiar. It doesn’t happen all at once. It’s slow. You learn what not to question. You learn what gets rewarded. How to operate inside the lines etc. By the time you’re senior, you’re competent, experienced, and effective but you’ve also adapted to the system you’re supposed to improve. We don't necessarily call it corruption, just conditioning The people who haven’t gone through that process see things differently. They walk in and ask simple questions. Why does this take so long? Why are we doing it this way? Who decided this makes sense? Those questions sound basic, but they’re dangerous. Over time, the system trains those questions out of you. That’s the cost of staying in it. We say we value merit, but we build gates. Step by step, box by box, long enough for people to internalize the system before they’re ever in a position to change it. Most never do. They don’t even realize it. A popular military example is of course George Marshall. Who didn’t follow the clean, predictable path people pretend is required. He was elevated because of clarity, and when he got there, he changed the Army. That’s the difference and the proof because clarity beats conformity. This doesn’t mean outsiders are always right or that experience doesn’t matter. It means something simpler. A system becomes very comfortable with people who understand it, and very uncomfortable with people who can still see it. Over time, it starts protecting itself more than its purpose. That’s when it needs to be challenged. Not by the most experienced, but by the ones who haven’t forgotten what doesn’t make sense. Want to trim down the bureaucracy? Put people in charge at echelon with absolutely toxic levels of common sense. But it takes courage to place those kinds of people. A courage that is in short supply.

🇺🇸 Americans, open your eyes—this is the brutal reality staring us in the face: The United States has carried out military interventions, invasions, bombings, coups, and regime-change operations in over 80 countries since World War II—some sources say closer to hundreds when counting every covert action and proxy war. We've toppled governments in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Congo (1960), Chile (1973), and so many more. Full-scale wars and occupations in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq (twice), Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen... the list goes on. We've dropped more bombs, caused millions of deaths (civilian and military), shattered economies, created refugee crises, and left entire regions in chaos—all while calling it "spreading democracy" or "protecting freedom." Now ask yourself the one question that exposes the hypocrisy: How many times has a foreign army invaded and occupied the American mainland? Once. The British in 1812—they burned the White House and left. Pearl Harbor was a strike on Hawaii (not yet a state), 9/11 was terrorism—not an invasion. No foreign boots have marched across our heartland, occupied our cities, or redrawn our maps in over 200 years. Yet here we are in 2026, pouring over $900 BILLION to $1 TRILLION annually into defense—more than the next 9–10 countries COMBINED (China ~$300B, Russia ~$200B, India, Germany, UK, France, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and others all together can't match us). Think about that. Our bridges are collapsing. Our borders are porous. Our veterans sleep on the streets. Our debt is exploding toward unimaginable levels. Families can't afford groceries, rent, or healthcare. Kids are in failing schools. But we keep funding endless wars, bases in 80+ countries, and "nation-building" abroad. This isn't strength—it's insanity. We don't have our priorities straight. We've been sold the lie that being the world's permanent cop keeps us safe, when it actually breeds enemies, drains our treasury, and weakens us at home. Enough. It's time to bring our troops home, secure our borders, rebuild our infrastructure, take care of our people, and put America First—for real. No more playing global sheriff while our own house burns. If this hits home, RT, like, and comment 🔥 if you're done with the forever wars and ready to fix America instead. Who's with me? #RealAmericaFirst #EndEndlessWars #NoMoreWorldPolice #DemsUnited

@extradeadjcb This is the most insightful, perceptive, and pithy articulation of the state of things, for the right, that I have seen. Must read.

For what they'll spend on relo costs alone, the CA wealth tax exiles could have bought every CA election in perpetuity These guys aren’t risk-averse; they certainly aren’t lazy Even if they have no vision, you'd think they could avoid getting run out of town by mutants

@MsMelChen Thank you this is so spot on and well articulated!

I want all the time I spent reading that Ray Dalio essay back. "Wars won't go as planned" - yeah no shit Captain Obvious. He titled his self-important steaming pile of boomer doom porn: "It's Official: The World Order Has Broken Down" as if he's just a third-party observer, completely ignoring his role in hastening its collapse while actually profiting from it. The post WWII order - Bretton Woods, NATO, the Marshall Plan, the Pax Americana - was built on American strength, alliances, and a commitment to rules over raw power. Dalio and his ilk spent years eroding that foundation: lobbying for China's WTO entry, preaching endless globalization, offshoring manufacturing to China, normalizing their currency manipulation, cheerleading deeper integration of their state-controlled economy into the global financial system, pouring client money into their rigged markets, praising their "meritocratic autocracy" as the enlightened alternative to messy Western democracy. He didn't invent risk parity or whatever alchemical nonsense slapped on his 20% returns - he rode the greatest monetary orgy in human history. I'm not saying anyone could've done it, but at least recognize that decades of falling rates, housing bubbles and endless QE that inflated every asset are a VERY big part of why we're even reading his essay. Bro stumbled ass-backward into a multi-decade bull market and got honey-trapped by the CCP, and now pivots to "studying empires" and "cycles of collapse" when the winds shifted. Now he's lamenting the reality that "might makes right" and the "law of the jungle," recommending we "negotiate win-wins" with the same regime he swore was our "most important partner." What a load of crock. If he had stuck to his.. "principles," he'd have seen the debt bomb ticking in China's ghost cities years ago and not to mention, the population bomb (which appears nowhere in his essay). Expect to see a flood of this genre of essay from the expert class: solemn obituaries for the post-WWII world order penned by someone who dug its grave and made billions in the process, now pretending to be above it all.

@TimPrice1969 Great read. Cc @DonDurrett @LukeGromen

"Could silver bring down the entire system? Technically, yes - mass exodus to commodity money breaks the debt-based model." Silver: a superb, revelatory analysis of past, present and possible future. thenoticingproject.substack.com/p/silver-the-m…

@adamtaggart @andrewdbrooks Don't offer soppy platitudes to please everyone and offend no one. Offer a position of conviction that carries risk (someone might be offended) or don't offer anything at all.

@andrewdbrooks How else can I respond to 20+ people asking different versions of the same question?

@QTRResearch @AaronRDay @brownstoneinst Concerning. @LukeGromen your input is welcomed.

OK fine. These are not mutually exclusive. What's clear is that almost nobody who has a choice will live in a "diverse" area absent an economic rationale; many will make that choice for purely economic reasons. Some will not. But almost everyone would choose "non-diversity" all things being equal.

@RupMonk29 @aaron_renn Right but when choosing between non diversity and economic opportunity its pretty clear which is more important for most people.

The dissident right position that people want to live in all-white communities doesn't seem empirically valid. Pittsburgh is by far the whitest major metro in the country (84%), and is not a destination. Almost the entire top 10 whitest list is slow growth.