The future ain't what it used to be

April 02, 2018

Peak Prosperity

This marks our our 10th year of doing this. And by “this", we mean using data, logic and reason to support the very basic conclusion that infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.

Surprisingly, this simple, rational idea -- despite its huge and fast-growing pile of corroborating evidence -- still encounters tremendous pushback from society. Why? Because it runs afoul of most people's deep-seated belief systems.

Our decade of experience delivering this message has hammered home what behavioral scientists have been telling us for years -- that, with rare exceptions, we humans are not rational. We're rationalizers. We try to force our perception of reality to fit our beliefs; rather than the other way around.

Which is why the vast amount of grief, angst and encroaching dread that most people feel in western cultures today is likely due to the fact that, deep down, whether we're willing to admit it to ourselves or not, everybody already knows the truth: Our way of life is unsustainable.

In our hearts, we fear that someday, possibly soon, our comfy way of life will be ripped away; like a warm blanket snatched off of our sleeping bodies on a cold night.

The simple reality is that society's hopes for a "modern consumer-class lifestyle for all" are incompatible with the accelerating imbalance between the (still growing) human population and the (increasingly depleting) planet's natural resources. Basic math and physics tell us that the Earth's ecosystems can't handle the load for much longer.

The only remaining question concerns how fast the adjustment happens. Will the future be defined by a "slow burn", one that steadily degrades our living standards over generations? Or will we experience a sudden series of sharp shocks that plunge the world into chaos and conflict?

It's hard to say. As Yogi Berra famously quipped, “It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." So, it's left to us to remain open-minded and flexible as we draw up our plans for how we'll personally persevere through the coming years of change.

But even while the specifics about the future elude us today, “predicting" the macro trends most likely to influence the coming decades is very doable:

Rising trends:

Populism in politics
Federal debt levels
Geopolitical tensions
Interest rates

Falling trends:

Funding levels for pensions
The numbers of insects world wide
Confidence in the future among the younger generations
Wealth and income equality

Trends can be expected to continue until they change. Therefore making "predictions" on trends is like making a "prediction" about which way an already tossed ball will travel. It's not really a prediction at all, but a statement of observed data.

These two lists bring to mind another great Yogi Berra quote:

No, the future certainly isn't what it used to be.

Once it was a place in which you could invest towards your hopes and dreams, confident that conditions would be better for your children than they were for you.

That's no longer the case. The defining trends in play are all working to degrade, rather than enhance, our future prospects.

Which is why it's little surprise that millennials aren't saving for retirement. Here's the dim view many of them hold:

“In general, I regard the future as a multitude of possibilities, but most of them don't look good," Elias Schwartzman, 29, a musician, told me. “When I'm at retirement age, around 2050, I think it's possible we'll have seen a breakdown of modern society." Schwartzman said that he saw the future as encompassing one of two possibilities: an apocalyptic “total breakdown of industrial society," or “capitalism morphing into a complete plutocracy." “I think the argument can be made that we're well on the way to that reality," he added.
Wood, 32, a political consultant, told me via Twitter that she felt similarly. “I don't think the world can sustain capitalism for another decade," she explained. “It's socialism or bust. We will literally start having resource wars that will kill us all if we don't accept that the free market will absolutely destroy us within our lifetime [if] we don't start fighting its hegemony," she added.
(Source – Salon)

As someone who tracks economic, environmental and energy data closely, these views are neither surprising nor really debatable. They are merely trend extrapolations, which are difficult to dismiss.

What the older generations don't yet understand is that the economic and social models that rewarded them so richly are not doing the same for younger folks. In fact, those old models are visibly breaking down. And confidence in them is failing, too.

Younger people are increasingly seeing that the model of extractive, exponential growth (which is often errantly termed “capitalism" when, as practiced, it should be termed “corporate socialism") has no future. And of course, they are right.

But regardless of age, anyone with an open mind should be able to identify that something is wrong with the story of "endless growth". The evidence is pretty much everywhere we look:

(Source)

If we're willing to entertain the possibility that infinite exponential growth is impossible, and we extrapolate from there, what sort of economic trajectory would we expect to see as growth peters out? Exactly the sort we see in the above chart. Lower and slower growth that finally peters out and then slips into reverse for the rest of the story.

Sociologically, we'd expect people to be nervous, anxious, and scared as their dominant cultural narrative is increasingly revealed to be no longer viable. Ask yourself: is the world becoming calmer or more volatile? The rash of mass shootings, anti-establishment election victories, prescription drug epidemics, and returning nuclear war fears make the answer sadly obvious.

Biophysically, we'd expect to see key resources and species populations depleting at alarming rates -- which we are. This is due to diminishing returns: nearly every planetary resource is getting harder and more expensive to obtain. Mars anyone?

In a desperate attempt to mask the costs of of slower and lower growth, the world's central banking cartel has deployed its “one weird trick": lowering interest rates to historic rock-bottom levels. This has allowed for more debt to be crammed into the system for a few more years, to keep the mirage of the party continuing for just a little bit longer.

Because of that hail Mary, we have ended up in this very bizarre situation where our debt has been growing at twice the rate of our income -- which clearly will end up in a solvency crisis:

Perversely, the central banks are doing everything in their power to defend and propagate this unsustainable status quo, even though fourth grade math tells us it will surely end in ruin. How is it possible that this very simple observation eludes so many of those in positions of power? You'd have to be an intellectual yet idiot to hold the view that debts can forever compound at faster rate than income.

Further, we find that when the US government's deficit spending is stripped out from GDP growth, there actually hasn't been any economic growth at all for years:

(Source)

The US has been going deeper and deeper in debt simply to maintain the appearance of "economic growth". This whole illusion is being limped along for just a little while longer.

For what purpose? And why? Both excellent questions without a good answer. You should be asking yourself what "success" looks like here. What's the eng game? More growth? Okay, then what? More growth? Keep going along that line of thinking. Take as much time as you need.

Clearly there's an end to that story somewhere. Growth ceases. Presumably smart people in power get this, too, although they'll never admit it publicly so as not to spook the herd. Looking at the number of very well-connected and wealthy elites busily arranging bolt-hole properties to retreat to 'just in case', they're already well ahead of the general public in preparing for the tribulations to come.

All of which brings us to the very real prospect of war, as that has long been the favored path of politicians seeking to deflect public ire from their own policy failures. I worry that a major military conflict is dangerously close at hand. The ridiculous UK government narrative around the Skripal poisonings (which remains utterly illogical from start to finish) used to seriously degrade relationships between Russia and NATO has all the hallmarks of contrived political operation.

Added to the brewing geopolitical risk is the very likely prospect of the bursting of The Mother Of All Bubbles. When (not if, sadly) that happens, it will be truly catastrophic to every financial market in the world, and especially damaging to the western economies.

So the race is on. Will the bubble burst first? Or can the political class engineer a massive military distraction beforehand?

Regardless of who “wins" that race, you need to be physically, emotionally and financially prepared for these outcomes. PeakProsperity.com's (free) What Should I Do? guide is an essential resource for those not yet fully prepped, as well as is our Self-Assessment.

Yes. Things are that serious.

If you're not yet an enrolled subscriber to PeakProsperity.com, please consider becoming one now. 2018 is looking to be the shoo-in candidate for "The Year Everything Changed". Interest rates are finally rising. Volatility is finally returning to the financial markets. Oil prices are threatening to finally return to the critical $70/bbl range. The populace is finally waking up to the extent of the abuse perpetrated on their safety, personal data, and civil liberties. The crypto bubble has finally burst.

So many long-term trends that have defined the (false) sense of 'prosperity' over the past eight years are ending now. What ensues will be fast-paced disruption.

By enrolling, you'll stay abreast of developments and be able to position yourself (and your wealth) accordingly, benefiting from our daily work to harvest and synthesize all the complex information so you don't have to. You'll support will also help our ongoing efforts to bring Peak Prosperity's alternative message and insights to a greater percentage of the general public, who desperately need this information to counter the "Don't worry, everything is awesome!" narrative prevalent in our captive mass media.

In this vein, in Part 2: Everything Is Suddenly Deteriorating, Fast we analyze the recent whipsaw volatility that has broken out in the financial markets and explain why it, along with other markers we've been watching out for, indicates that the markets are poised to fall dramatically further from here -- whether war breaks out or not.

But even if this is as far as you're going to read, please get your preparations in place and get ready to hold fast. Things are only going to get bumpier from here.

Click here to read Part 2 of this report (free executive summary, enrollment required for full access)

Antifa isn’t “leaderless” — It’s an organized machine of violence

Jeff J Mitchell / Staff | Getty Images

The mob rises where men of courage fall silent. The lesson from Portland, Chicago, and other blue cities is simple: Appeasing radicals doesn’t buy peace — it only rents humiliation.

Parts of America, like Portland and Chicago, now resemble occupied territory. Progressive city governments have surrendered control to street militias, leaving citizens, journalists, and even federal officers to face violent anarchists without protection.

Take Portland, where Antifa has terrorized the city for more than 100 consecutive nights. Federal officers trying to keep order face nightly assaults while local officials do nothing. Independent journalists, such as Nick Sortor, have even been arrested for documenting the chaos. Sortor and Blaze News reporter Julio Rosas later testified at the White House about Antifa’s violence — testimony that corporate media outlets buried.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened.

Chicago offers the same grim picture. Federal agents have been stalked, ambushed, and denied backup from local police while under siege from mobs. Calls for help went unanswered, putting lives in danger. This is more than disorder; it is open defiance of federal authority and a violation of the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.

A history of violence

For years, the legacy media and left-wing think tanks have portrayed Antifa as “decentralized” and “leaderless.” The opposite is true. Antifa is organized, disciplined, and well-funded. Groups like Rose City Antifa in Oregon, the Elm Fork John Brown Gun Club in Texas, and Jane’s Revenge operate as coordinated street militias. Legal fronts such as the National Lawyers Guild provide protection, while crowdfunding networks and international supporters funnel money directly to the movement.

The claim that Antifa lacks structure is a convenient myth — one that’s cost Americans dearly.

History reminds us what happens when mobs go unchecked. The French Revolution, Weimar Germany, Mao’s Red Guards — every one began with chaos on the streets. But it wasn’t random. Today’s radicals follow the same playbook: Exploit disorder, intimidate opponents, and seize moral power while the state looks away.

Dismember the dragon

The Trump administration’s decision to designate Antifa a domestic terrorist organization was long overdue. The label finally acknowledged what citizens already knew: Antifa functions as a militant enterprise, recruiting and radicalizing youth for coordinated violence nationwide.

But naming the threat isn’t enough. The movement’s financiers, organizers, and enablers must also face justice. Every dollar that funds Antifa’s destruction should be traced, seized, and exposed.

AFP Contributor / Contributor | Getty Images

This fight transcends party lines. It’s not about left versus right; it’s about civilization versus anarchy. When politicians and judges excuse or ignore mob violence, they imperil the republic itself. Americans must reject silence and cowardice while street militias operate with impunity.

Antifa is organized, funded, and emboldened. The violence in Portland and Chicago is deliberate, not spontaneous. If America fails to confront it decisively, the price won’t just be broken cities — it will be the erosion of the republic itself.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

URGENT: Supreme Court case could redefine religious liberty

Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images

The state is effectively silencing professionals who dare speak truths about gender and sexuality, redefining faith-guided speech as illegal.

This week, free speech is once again on the line before the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake is whether Americans still have the right to talk about faith, morality, and truth in their private practice without the government’s permission.

The case comes out of Colorado, where lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on what they call “conversion therapy.” The law prohibits licensed counselors from trying to change a minor’s gender identity or sexual orientation, including their behaviors or gender expression. The law specifically targets Christian counselors who serve clients attempting to overcome gender dysphoria and not fall prey to the transgender ideology.

The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The law does include one convenient exception. Counselors are free to “assist” a person who wants to transition genders but not someone who wants to affirm their biological sex. In other words, you can help a child move in one direction — one that is in line with the state’s progressive ideology — but not the other.

Think about that for a moment. The state is saying that a counselor can’t even discuss changing behavior with a client. Isn’t that the whole point of counseling?

One‑sided freedom

Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor in Colorado Springs, has been one of the victims of this blatant attack on the First Amendment. Chiles has dedicated her practice to helping clients dealing with addiction, trauma, sexuality struggles, and gender dysphoria. She’s also a Christian who serves patients seeking guidance rooted in biblical teaching.

Before 2019, she could counsel minors according to her faith. She could talk about biblical morality, identity, and the path to wholeness. When the state outlawed that speech, she stopped. She followed the law — and then she sued.

Her case, Chiles v. Salazar, is now before the Supreme Court. Justices heard oral arguments on Tuesday. The question: Is counseling a form of speech or merely a government‑regulated service?

If the court rules the wrong way, it won’t just silence therapists. It could muzzle pastors, teachers, parents — anyone who believes in truth grounded in something higher than the state.

Censored belief

I believe marriage between a man and a woman is ordained by God. I believe that family — mother, father, child — is central to His design for humanity.

I believe that men and women are created in God’s image, with divine purpose and eternal worth. Gender isn’t an accessory; it’s part of who we are.

I believe the command to “be fruitful and multiply” still stands, that the power to create life is sacred, and that it belongs within marriage between a man and a woman.

And I believe that when we abandon these principles — when we treat sex as recreation, when we dissolve families, when we forget our vows — society fractures.

Are those statements controversial now? Maybe. But if this case goes against Chiles, those statements and others could soon be illegal to say aloud in public.

Faith on trial

In Colorado today, a counselor cannot sit down with a 15‑year‑old who’s struggling with gender identity and say, “You were made in God’s image, and He does not make mistakes.” That is now considered hate speech.

That’s the “freedom” the modern left is offering — freedom to affirm, but never to question. Freedom to comply, but never to dissent. The same movement that claims to champion tolerance now demands silence from anyone who disagrees. The root of this case isn’t about therapy. It’s about erasing a worldview.

The real test

No matter what happens at the Supreme Court, we cannot stop speaking the truth. These beliefs aren’t political slogans. For me, they are the product of years of wrestling, searching, and learning through pain and grace what actually leads to peace. For us, they are the fundamental principles that lead to a flourishing life. We cannot balk at standing for truth.

Maybe that’s why God allows these moments — moments when believers are pushed to the wall. They force us to ask hard questions: What is true? What is worth standing for? What is worth dying for — and living for?

If we answer those questions honestly, we’ll find not just truth, but freedom.

The state doesn’t grant real freedom — and it certainly isn’t defined by Colorado legislators. Real freedom comes from God. And the day we forget that, the First Amendment will mean nothing at all.

This article originally appeared on TheBlaze.com.

Glenn Beck joins Megyn Kelly LIVE — One night ONLY in Fort Worth!

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This promises to be more than just an interview — it’s a live showdown packed with wit, honesty, and the kind of energy you can only feel if you are in the room. Tickets are selling fast, so don’t miss your chance to see Glenn like you’ve never seen him before.

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What our response to Israel reveals about us

JOSEPH PREZIOSO / Contributor | Getty Images

I have been honored to receive the Defender of Israel Award from Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The Jerusalem Post recently named me one of the strongest Christian voices in support of Israel.

And yet, my support is not blind loyalty. It’s not a rubber stamp for any government or policy. I support Israel because I believe it is my duty — first as a Christian, but even if I weren’t a believer, I would still support her as a man of reason, morality, and common sense.

Because faith isn’t required to understand this: Israel’s existence is not just about one nation’s survival — it is about the survival of Western civilization itself.

It is a lone beacon of shared values in the Middle East. It is a bulwark standing against radical Islam — the same evil that seeks to dismantle our own nation from within.

And my support is not rooted in politics. It is rooted in something simpler and older than politics: a people’s moral and historical right to their homeland, and their right to live in peace.

Israel has that right — and the right to defend herself against those who openly, repeatedly vow her destruction.

Let’s make it personal: if someone told me again and again that they wanted to kill me and my entire family — and then acted on that threat — would I not defend myself? Wouldn’t you? If Hamas were Canada, and we were Israel, and they did to us what Hamas has done to them, there wouldn’t be a single building left standing north of our border. That’s not a question of morality.

That’s just the truth. All people — every people — have a God-given right to protect themselves. And Israel is doing exactly that.

My support for Israel’s right to finish the fight against Hamas comes after eighty years of rejected peace offers and failed two-state solutions. Hamas has never hidden its mission — the eradication of Israel. That’s not a political disagreement.

That’s not a land dispute. That is an annihilationist ideology. And while I do not believe this is America’s war to fight, I do believe — with every fiber of my being — that it is Israel’s right, and moral duty, to defend her people.

Criticism of military tactics is fair. That’s not antisemitism. But denying Israel’s right to exist, or excusing — even celebrating — the barbarity of Hamas? That’s something far darker.

We saw it on October 7th — the face of evil itself. Women and children slaughtered. Babies burned alive. Innocent people raped and dragged through the streets. And now, to see our own fellow citizens march in defense of that evil… that is nothing short of a moral collapse.

If the chants in our streets were, “Hamas, return the hostages — Israel, stop the bombing,” we could have a conversation.

But that’s not what we hear.

What we hear is open sympathy for genocidal hatred. And that is a chasm — not just from decency, but from humanity itself. And here lies the danger: that same hatred is taking root here — in Dearborn, in London, in Paris — not as horror, but as heroism. If we are not vigilant, the enemy Israel faces today will be the enemy the free world faces tomorrow.

This isn’t about politics. It’s about truth. It’s about the courage to call evil by its name and to say “Never again” — and mean it.

And you don’t have to open a Bible to understand this. But if you do — if you are a believer — then this issue cuts even deeper. Because the question becomes: what did God promise, and does He keep His word?

He told Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” He promised to make Abraham the father of many nations and to give him “the whole land of Canaan.” And though Abraham had other sons, God reaffirmed that promise through Isaac. And then again through Isaac’s son, Jacob — Israel — saying: “The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I give to you and to your descendants after you.”

That’s an everlasting promise.

And from those descendants came a child — born in Bethlehem — who claimed to be the Savior of the world. Jesus never rejected His title as “son of David,” the great King of Israel.

He said plainly that He came “for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” And when He returns, Scripture says He will return as “the Lion of the tribe of Judah.” And where do you think He will go? Back to His homeland — Israel.

Tamir Kalifa / Stringer | Getty Images

And what will He find when He gets there? His brothers — or his brothers’ enemies? Will the roads where He once walked be preserved? Or will they lie in rubble, as Gaza does today? If what He finds looks like the aftermath of October 7th, then tell me — what will be my defense as a Christian?

Some Christians argue that God’s promises to Israel have been transferred exclusively to the Church. I don’t believe that. But even if you do, then ask yourself this: if we’ve inherited the promises, do we not also inherit the land? Can we claim the birthright and then, like Esau, treat it as worthless when the world tries to steal it?

So, when terrorists come to slaughter Israelis simply for living in the land promised to Abraham, will we stand by? Or will we step forward — into the line of fire — and say,

“Take me instead”?

Because this is not just about Israel’s right to exist.

It’s about whether we still know the difference between good and evil.

It’s about whether we still have the courage to stand where God stands.

And if we cannot — if we will not — then maybe the question isn’t whether Israel will survive. Maybe the question is whether we will.

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