Hell Bound Money

Kidnapping foreign heads of state, who displease the US, is not new. The US has ‘captured’ five of them. But this is the first time that the US announced that it will take charge of the country.

Venezuelan and American currency, side by side. Source: Getty Images

Tuesday, January 6^th, 2026

Bill Bonner, from Baltimore, Maryland

Those poor Somalis. They pay a ‘big price.’ But for what? They’ve got nothing. No money. No oil. No army. No navy. No national orchestra. And who books a flight on Somali Airlines?

And yet, US presidents seem to want to take a whack at them. Trump, living in superlatives, set the previous record for hitting the woebegone Somalis during his first term. He hit (bombed) them 63 times in a single year. But in 2025, he went at them twice as hard — with 127 strikes.

There is surely a ‘reason’ for all this violence. But you could ask 100 million Americans and probably not discover what it is.

It only makes sense – and then, only marginally – in a larger context. The attacks on Somalia are just a part of the Decline and Fall of the US Empire: Pointless. Costly. Destructive.

There are two essential pieces to the Empire Reduction program. One: ruin the economy with overspending and debt. Two: create enemies by attacking small, largely defenseless countries on trumped up charges. Anti-war.com:

2025 saw a major increase in US airstrikes due to President Trump loosening the rules of engagement for military commanders and launching new interventions in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

According to a report from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) released earlier this year, Trump launched nearly as many airstrikes in just his first five months in office as President Biden did during his entire four-year term.

In addition to Somalia, the Trump Team has bombed Nigeria, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Venezuela (it is still unclear what the ‘covert’ action was before the end of the year). This last one spilled over into the New Year with a spectacular kidnapping of the president of Venezuela and his wife...which takes the use of violence to a whole new level.

Kidnapping foreign heads of state, who displease the US, is not new. The US has ‘captured’ five of them. But this is the first time that the US announced that henceforth it will take charge of the country itself...including its oil riches.

What are they thinking? It’s hard enough to ‘run’ your own country.

Try to ‘run’ a country you’ve never visited of 30 million people whose history you don’t know and whose language you don’t speak? We can guess how it will turn out.

But who knows? The guy who ran Venezuela, until he was made to do the perp walk, wasn’t doing such a great job either. In fact, it would be hard to do a worse job.

And yet, that is the great likelihood. Abroad, as at home, Mr. Trump shakes things up...and then lets them settle into familiar patterns. In the US, after all the shake, rattle, and roll of DOGE et al, deficits are scheduled to continue to grow...just as they did under Bush, Obama, Biden et al. Debt will keep going up, too...until the whole thing blows up.

Foreign policy is much the same. It is meant not to protect the empire, but to destroy it. Trump beheaded the Venezuelan leadership. But the rest of the elite are still there...and still taking advantage of every opportunity to rip off the public.

The problem is that Trump likes to ‘run’ things too. And the more the politicians try to ‘run’ a country, the less well the country runs. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, ran Venezuela into the ground. And he did so using the tried-and-true combination, now taken up by Mr. Trump, of financial debauchery and political violence. In 2010, he declared an ‘economic war.’ The government depended on oil revenues.the key part of the program was to bring the oil industry under government control.

The results were as might have been expected. Output declined. Revenues fell. But Chavez did not cut government spending; instead, he ran big deficits and ‘printed’ the cash to cover them.

By 2017, food was scarce and expensive. The average Venezuelan had lost nearly 20 lbs. By 2021, three quarters of the population were living in extreme poverty, trying to survive in an economy with an inflation rate estimated as high as ten million percent. More and more people fled the country; today, there are said to be seven million Venezuelans outside the country.

In theory at least, Trump could do the Venezuelans a favor by overthrowing the corrupt regime, liberating the country, and letting Venezuelans run the country themselves. But Trump has no plans to liberate anything. The status of Venezuela’s new head of state, for example, was surely worked out in advance. She is supposed to administer Venezuela as if it were Vichy France, always aware that she must answer to the gringos. And if she forgets to play her role, she might as well flee to Somalia.

Wouldn’t it be easier to let the Venezuelans run their own affairs? Wouldn’t it be cheaper to buy oil on the open market? Wouldn’t it be less provocative to mind our own business? Wouldn’t it be more effective to end the War on Drugs? Wouldn’t we be more likely to Make America Great Again by liberating our own country...by balancing the budget...and by concentrating on defending the homeland rather than meddling in other countries’ affairs?

The answer to all those questions is the same: yes, of course. But this ‘mistake’ is not just a ‘mistake.’ This is History at work. In this light, the Trump program is fairly consistent and coherent, including even the cockamamie tariffs. What problem was ever solved by spending money you don’t have on something you don’t need? What challenge was ever met by bombing people — almost randomly — or kidnapping foreign heads of state? What purpose did tariffs ever serve? Only one...

The challenge of a government hell bent on its own destruction…

Stay tuned.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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Research Note, by Dan Denning

The US Energy Department announced $2.7 billion in ‘investments’ to help build out America’s nuclear energy supply chain. The three separate investments are designed to build up the capacity to enrich uranium right here in America (the US still gets nuclear fuel from Russia). The money is meant to speed development of enriched uranium used in traditional (existing) nuclear reactors as well as high-assay low-enriched uranium (more suitable for the next generation of small modular nuclear reactors that might be used to power individual factories or data centers).

One of the companies in line for government money is Centrus Energy (pictured above, after rising more than 9% yesterday). BPR wrote about Centrus and other companies involved in the nuclear supply chain in late 2022 and again in 2023. What’s changed since then?

The demand for cheap electricity from data centers at the heart of the AI boom. How long will this trend continue? Is there a way to invest in it or speculate on it? What should you do in 2026 if you’re new to the uranium/nuclear story?

These are questions our Investment Director Tom Dyson may ask our old friend Rick Rule in an upcoming Private Briefing (paying subscribers only). Tom sits down to talk with Rick tomorrow. If you have a question you’d like Rick to address, leave it in the comments below or send it to bpr@bonnerprivateresearch.com