Eye of the Storm

The purpose of the war is not to protect Europe from Russia, but to protect its elites from a half century of ‘mistakes.’ A foreign enemy is the oldest alibi in the book. And still the most reliable.

Source: Getty Images

Thursday, October 15th, 2026

Bill Bonner, from Ardmore, Ireland

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A whole flotilla of news bobs around a whirlpool of funny money finance. The Financial Times:

Top economies heading for biggest budget deficits since Covid, IMF warns. At its annual meeting, the fund calls for ‘urgent’ action to rebuild public finances

Newsweek adds the personal touch:

Eight months into the war in Iran, the average American household is nearly $2,000 worse off, according to economist Mark Zandi. This adds a fresh economic pressure as the midterms approach.

“Nearly $2,000. By my calculation, that is what the Iran war has cost the average American household since the war began nearly eight months ago. Nationwide, that adds up to $265 billion,” Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote on social media.

That is seven times more than what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told Congress the war had cost the nation between February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran, and late July.

Seven times? A mistake? The Independent follows up:

American families are falling behind on their bills at a rate not seen since the Great Recession, according to new federal data.

One in five households are behind on a loan payment, reported the Federal Reserve in its three-year survey of 4,367 U.S. families.

“Between the 2022 and 2025 surveys, the share of families that reported being behind on loan payments sharply increased from about 12 percent to almost 20 percent,” the report said.

The number of families at least two months late on a bill has increased 60 percent in the past three years, according to the report.

Outraged young people in France are in a lather...disappointed older people in America are in a sulk...and a lot of people in-between don’t know what to think. Look more closely, and the storm stretches out...like a vast hurricane centered in the North Atlantic, threatening to soak us all.

Someone must have made a colossal mistake. But the voters can always be trusted to make the right choices...after they’ve exhausted all the wrong ones...can’t they?

“The Republicans really made a mess of things,” some are likely to say. “Oh yeah? Well, if we let you Democrats run things the whole country will soon be bankrupt before Christmas.”

And now...approaching the mid-term elections, US voters are girding their loins for a battle royale. They hope to correct a big mistake and set things right. They may get rid of one scoundrel. But they are sure to find another.

Mistakes are what you call rational choices that don’t work out. All the major political parties of the West went along with the funny money, even welcoming it. It was the Original Sin of modern democracies. And at first, like all sins worth committing, it seemed not only like a ‘good idea,’ but like it might be fun. Spending money you never had to earn...whoopee!

And then, when the storm clouds gathered, other mistakes were made, intended to fix the first one. And now, thoughtful people are beginning to realize that the whole fake money system was a mistake. But it is too late to correct it; the Republic is in the grip of powerful winds it cannot control.

Last week marked the 25th anniversary of America’s war on Afghanistan. The first drone attack was meant to kill a leading terrorist. It failed. He survived — a ‘ghost,’ they called him. Others did not survive. But terrorism flourished. Consortium News:

Strikes did not only create ghosts. They also created recruits. Researchers, journalists and Afghan elders have long described the same pattern: A village is hit, a family is destroyed and the Taliban offer the survivors the only form of justice made available to them. By the end of the war, entire districts had made that choice, not out of ideological conviction but out of grief.

Was the war a mistake? Certainly, the deciders didn’t think so.

While the US spent billions recruiting for the Taliban, Europe spent far too much on ‘social’ programs for its own voters. Now, with a ‘budget crisis looming’ it takes a page out of America’s thick catalogue of errors. After eight decades relatively ‘war free,’ it summons its drones. Strategic Culture:

Barely a week passes before [Ursula von der Leyen] makes another crackpot policy announcement, gives herself a salary increase, or makes a statement about needing to give even more money to Ukraine. But in recent months these announcements have become more radical and existential, and we are seeing a new dawn now in the EU where the only solution to cover up the feral spending and borrowing is to fabricate a war with Russia and then blame Putin for the whole fiasco.

No half-bright person really thinks Russia is much of a threat. It can barely prevail against the Ukraine in its own backyard. A real war with NATO would be a disaster for Russia.

But the purpose of the war is not to protect Europe from Russia, but to protect its elites from a half century of ‘mistakes.’ A foreign enemy is the oldest alibi in the book. And still the most reliable.

Back in North America, the US has long enjoyed a strategic advantage. It has only two neighbors, north and south, neither of which poses any threat.

So, what does it do? It establishes an American presence — mainly military bases — thousands of miles away. And it takes sides — such as entering a ‘special’ relationship with Israel. Now, it has enemies all around.

A mistake? Maybe not. One man’s blunder is another man’s vacation home on the Outer Banks.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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