Marked for Extincition

The oppressors and the oppressed mostly stay where they are. More than half a century of the War on Poverty, for example, has left us with about the same proportion of poor people as we started with.

Monday, July 27th, 2026

Bill Bonner, from Poitou, France

“Just stop talking about it.”

—Morgan Freeman, on how to get rid of racism

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In Anne Arundel county, Maryland, 1960, children slouched back to school in September as they always did. It was hot. And, as usual, the farm boys got an extra two weeks’ grace, to help bring the tobacco into the barn, before bending to readin’ and writin’ in the classroom.

But this time it was different. There were three little black faces — girls — walking down a hallway that had never seen anything but white faces. We were there, just entering the 7th grade.

The Black girls were brave. And grim. They didn’t walk; they marched, shoulder to shoulder, as if braced for an attack.

No attack came. Instead, some of the White children plastered themselves against the walls as if the girls might give them cooties. Nothing was ever said.

And after two days, the excitement of integrating Southern Junior-Senior High was over. The girls became schoolmates...and friends. And over the next few years, the school became completely integrated.

But today, we follow up from last week, looking at how ‘isms’ are used to bulk up political power.

We’ve seen that people always like some people more than others. We’ve seen too that they will act upon their preferences — such as not going into a ‘bad neighborhood’ at night.

Racism? In Baltimore, on Martin Luther King boulevard people frequently roll up their windows and lock their doors. Is that racism?

Then, along come leaders who start ‘talking about it.’ And they do so for a reason. They cry ‘racism’ or ‘antisemitism.’ Or ‘fascism.’ Or many other ‘isms.’ These are used to mold the mob’s opinions and pry open the Treasury door.

For many years, America’s leaders maintained that the African race could be held in chains simply because they were African. They were not considered fully human. The powers-that-were promoted the idea of chattel slavery because, presumably, it was beneficial to some of them. They were racists...and proud of it.

Later, slavery was abolished and political leaders found another way to leverage the ‘racist’ allegation. They turned African Americans into a special class, entitled to special benefits and privileges. Oppose the preferential treatment and you were labelled a ‘racist.’ Prior to the Emancipation, African immigrants could be worked on plantations without wages.

Then, beginning in the 1960s, they could be given wages without setting foot in the cotton fields — not just with a few token seats at universities, but also as clients of a vast bureaucracy, including DEI ‘consultants’ and War on Poverty foot-soldiers. Whether it did Black Americans any good is a matter of debate, but it provided plenty of juicy jobs for White — and Black — employees.

No one would say so out loud, but undergirding the whole operation was the lingering ‘racist’ prejudice that African Americans couldn’t be left alone, like everyone else. They were a special group in need of either the whip of the slave driver...or the bounty of well-meaning bureaucrats.

As Dan wrote last week.

Through a steady flow of government cash to NGOs, institutes, and thinly disguised government entities, children are indoctrinated early...and slowly rise to levels of prominence (via promotion from those already in place) to fundamentally change the purpose of the institutions they now control (the media, the schools, the military, business, government, religion). Everything becomes a crusade to right historical wrongs, and to redistribute money and power from the oppressors to the oppressed.

But the oppressors and the oppressed mostly stay where they are. More than half a century of the War on Poverty, for example, has left us with about the same proportion of poor people as we started with.

The arresting thing from our point of view is that almost anything can be used to identify a special group, turn the public against it, and deprive its members of rights, liberties...and sometimes, their lives. It doesn’t have to be a matter of race. It could be religion. Or culture. Or political opinion.

George W. Bush led off the 21st century with his claim that there was a group of ‘terrorists’ who needed killing. The ‘terrorist’ label proved remarkably elastic; he found them even in Iraq, a country not known for sponsoring terror of any sort. But with this new ‘racist-like’ distinction, all you had to do was accuse someone of being a terrorist and suddenly they could have their bank account shut down, their passport revoked, and their wealth seized. Or, they could simply be murdered.

Joe Biden edged toward making MAGA supporters a proscribed group in his ‘blood red’ speech. Fascists were already beyond the pale. MAGA was ‘semi-fascist,’ said Biden.

Donald Trump added drug importers to the ‘terrorist’ list. Then, with no judicial review — no trial, no evidence, no rebuttal, no presumption of innocence, no jury — people were executed. They were not entitled to equal protection; they were subhuman.

And just last week we got a new category of villain. The White House:

Today, the Trump Administration convened senior officials from governments around the world to launch an unprecedented global offensive against the transnational threat of Radical Left terrorism.

Under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump, far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.

Oh boy...

An age-old pillar of the rule of law tells us that you are judged not on who you are, but what you do. But a racist hunter...an anti-semite vigilante...a terrorist fighter...a religious crusader, full of ersatz confidence and unquestioned conviction, doesn’t need to find crime. The crime is just being a member of the target class. Then, the whole group can be marked for extinction.

Stay tuned.

Regards,

Bill Bonner

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Investors are paying a record amount for a dollar’s worth of sales for S&P 500 companies. It better be worth it.

Research Note, by Dan Denning

Poor old Google (parent company Alphabet). Last week the company ‘beat’ estimates on second quarter earnings. But the stock fell 7%. In the fine print, the company reported capex of $205 billion. For the first time since 2004 when it went public, the company reported negative free cash flow for the quarter ($5.9 billion).

Google is ‘all in’ on AI. And that costs real free cash flow (or, increasingly, borrowing from the bond market). You can dress up earnings. But revenue is harder to finesse. The market’s reaction to Google’s earnings ‘beat’ shows that some investors are thinking about how rich price-to-sales ratios are for the tech companies. They’re thinking more about whether that capex will generate higher earnings in the future.

That matters this week for the entire market and the biggest tech stocks. Microsoft [MSFT] and Meta [META] report on Wednesday. Then Apple [AAPL] and Amazon [AMZN] report on Thursday. In the midst of all that, the Federal Reserve’s Monetary Policy Committee meets in the middle of the week.

A hike? Or cut? Or neither. Stay tuned.