Conspiracy of Dunces

All political arrangements, being part of life itself, decay over time. Constitutions are re-interpreted. Public mores become more elastic. Bread and circuses tend to replace modest, restrained leader

The Cemetery at Gualfin

Wednesday, April 30th, 2025

Bill Bonner, from the ranch at Gualfin, Argentina

“The first time, I had two things to do — run the country and survive; I had all these crooked guys,” Trump said in an interview with the Atlantic. “And the second time, I run the country and the world.”

Trump is the Big Man. He believes his writ should be law and that wind and waves — at home and abroad — should bow to his will. His fans believe it too. They didn’t vote for 50% tariffs. Or for deporting infant citizens. They voted for Trump -- Pompey, Caesar, and Augustus all in one…the man...and they trust him to do what needs to be done, whatever it may be.

There is nothing really unusual about this. The Greeks noticed thousands of years ago that democracy tended to become less consensual and more dictatorial as time went by. The Big Man offered simplification, retribution and justice. He didn’t necessarily come with a coherent program, but he promised to smite the common man’s enemies. And that was enough.

And despite all the wailing and whining in the mainstream press, there’s nothing to say that the change from collaborative democracy to Big Man rule represents a degradation in the quality of government. When things need doing, the Big Man is able to do them. He is less restrained by rules and institutions, which by this time have become mostly parasitic and self-serving anyway.

All political arrangements, being part of life itself, decay over time. Constitutions are re-interpreted. Public mores become more elastic. Bread and circuses tend to replace modest, restrained leadership.

All empires rise and fall, with an average life-span only slightly longer than a Bowhead whale. America’s empire – judged from when it took over the Philippines after a jingoed-up war with Spain — is already more than halfway there. Arguably, it has been in decline for a quarter of a century. And what it needs now — from this historical perspective — is a leader who will continue the downward trend. Mr. Trump may be that man.

But no one runs a government alone. Even Louis 14th — an ‘absolute monarch’ — relied on legions of soldiers, tax collectors, informants, sycophants, suck-ups and public servants. And as Elon Musk put it on X (correctly, but perhaps unwisely): “Hitler didn’t murder millions of people; public sector employees did.”

A wise and powerful ruler can prevent mass murder. Or cause it. He can even halt, at least temporarily, the decline of an empire. But in that, too, he needs supporters, lackeys, fixers, and fans.

On Monday, we looked at how easy it would be. There are really two key threats to the US empire. They are the traditional ones — money and military. Typically, the money runs out and the military runs wild.

We looked at how both problems could be easily solved — in theory.

But there is more to the story; there are the connivers, the professional patriots and casual traitors. For example, there is no reason to spend $1 trillion per year on the Pentagon. Except that, those public sector employees — conspiring with the firepower industry — want to see the money keep coming... all the way to bankruptcy. Open Secrets:

Defense companies spend millions every year lobbying politicians and donating to their campaigns. In the past two decades [to 2021], their extensive network of lobbyists and donors have directed $285 million in campaign contributions and $2.5 billion in lobbying spending to influence defense policy. To further these goals they hired more than 200 lobbyists who have worked in the same government that regulates and decides funding for the industry.

The chance of an invasion of the US is approximately zero. No country has a fleet that could support a sea-borne assault. No country has an economy that could support such a fleet. No country could develop such a fleet, unobserved. And if by some miracle the means were found...and the will to waste trillions of dollars somehow took hold of an enemy nation...the poor invading force would be obliterated long before it reached the middle of the vast ocean.

The only real threat comes from the air, where America’s ‘Triad’ defense — land-based missiles, submarines, and long-range bombers — is more than enough to meet the challenge. That Triad, by the way, requires few soldiers...and no foreign bases. Its cost is very modest, a fraction of the ‘defense’ budget. The rest of the ‘defense’ budget is not meant for defense at all... but just for projecting US imperial power and directing hundreds of billions to America’s firepower industry.

The idea of a ‘conspiracy’ is that people get together to achieve some underhanded purpose. For example, there are people — apparently sane, apparently sensible — who believe Donald Trump is actually an asset of the Russian government. They say he was recruited as early as 1987 and to everyone’s surprise ended up as president. Business Insider:

The KGB cultivated Donald Trump as an asset for 40 years, and he proved a highly valuable asset in repeating anti-Western Russian propaganda in the United States, a former KGB operative told The Guardian.

As shocking as it might be, it doesn’t matter. Mr. Trump could perfectly well come to his positions on his own. Biden favored Zelensky. Trump favors Putin. So what? Conspiracy or not, the conflict is none of our business...and no threat to the empire.

Likewise, the slaughter in Gaza may be of concern on moral grounds... or ideological grounds. It may be called a ‘conspiracy’ too, in which both Republicans and Democrats are in effect paid ‘assets’ for a foreign cause. The Intercept:

AIPAC (America, Israel Public Affairs Committee)...funded Republican, Democrat, and independent candidates alike. AIPAC [in 2024] supported 233 Republicans with a total of more than $17 million in funds, 152 Democrats who received more than $28 million...

Mayhem in the Near East may be a distraction and an unnecessary expense, but as far as the ‘defense’ of the US is concerned, it just doesn’t matter.

The conspiracy that really matters is the obvious one. Home-grown politicians, the Pentagon/Intelligence Establishment and the firepower industry -- all conspire against the public interest for their own gain..

And unwittingly drag the empire to the graveyard.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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Market Note, by Dan Denning

We’re halfway to an official recession (two quarters of negative GDP growth). US GDP shrunk by 0.3% in the first quarter, according to figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) earlier today. As the chart above shows, the biggest contributors to the ‘negative’ growth were imports (which subtracted 4.83% from GDP) and lower government spending (subtracting 0.25% from GDP).

GDP is a backward looking number (and in the long-term, lower government spending and more private sector investing is a good thing) Our own Doom Index, the latest reading of which Tom Dyson will publish later today in the May Monthly Strategy Report, has been telling us the real economy (minus government spending) has been in a modest contraction for months. What’s next?

The silver lining from the GDP report is that much of it was driven by large trade deficits in goods in the first quarter. The March trade deficit in goods was $162 billion, a 9% increase over February. This is so-called ‘tariff front running’ as importers rushed to stock inventories ahead of ‘Liberation Day'.

More important for stocks this week are the earnings announcements from four of the Magnificent Seven. Microsoft, Apple, Meta, and Amazon.com all report this week. Also, a blow-out quarterly refinancing statement from the US Treasury published earlier this week. Stay tuned for more analysis in my research note on Friday.