This is the turning point

The saying "the worm has turned" refers to the moment when the downtrodden have finally had enough, and turn on their powerful oppressors.

The worms have finally turned against the privileged elites -- who have benefited so greatly from globalization, corruption, central bank stimulus and the profiteering of state-enforced cartels. It doesn’t matter as much as the punditry assumes whether they are turning Left or Right; the important thing is that the powerless have finally started challenging their privileged overlords.

Though the Powers That Be will attempt to placate or suppress the Revolt of the Powerless, the genies of political disunity and social disorder cannot be put back in the bottle. It took a generation of rising inequality, corruption and the erosion of opportunity to create a society of the protected (the haves) and the unprotected (the have-nots), and rubber-stamping more regulations and distributing Universal Basic Income (UBI) will not rebalance a system that is irrevocably out of balance.

But the rise of resistance, as yet nascent, is only half the story: economic trends and cycles are turning as well, and even if the worms remain passively underground, these reversals will disrupt the status quo. The dominant narrative--the rightness, goodness and sustainability of endless growth of consumption and debt--will unravel, and the internal contradictions of this New Gilded Age (widening wealth/income/power inequality) will finally burst through the thin façade of stability that’s been patched together over the past nine years of “recovery.”

Eight Key Trends/Cycles Are Turning

Here’s the thing about trends and cycles: when they inevitably lose altitude or reverse, we rush around trying to identify the cause. All sorts of theories are put forth, but as a general rule, it rarely boils down to one dynamic.

Consider the decline and fall of the Western Roman Empire. Efforts to identify the cause go back hundreds of years, and include everything from barbarian invasions to the use of lead pipes to deliver water.

A new book, The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire, pins a significant part of the responsibility on climate change and pandemic diseases—system-wide dynamics that slowly sapped Rome’s vigor, food supplies, capital and labor force.  Not only that, but cooling weather patterns in Eurasia may have been behind the westward movement of the mobile tribes (the Huns and Mongolians) that pushed existing tribes on Rome’s borders into Roman territories—the so-called Barbarian Invasions.

The point here is that systemic trends and cycles are often causally connected and tend to reinforce each other. This is how a stable, wealthy and resilient society gets hollowed out: trends end and cycles reverse, and forces that added stability, capital and resilience when they were working together are slowly replaced by forces that erode the foundations of wealth and stability.

In the current era, eight interconnected trends/cycles are either reaching the end of their run or reversing:

  1. Central bank distortion/manipulation of markets.
  2. The business cycle of credit/debt expansion and contraction.
  3. The yield/interest rate cycle.
  4. The commodity cycle.
  5. The stock market cycle.
  6. Regulation.
  7. Globalization.
  8. Demographics.

Each of these would need a short book to do the topic even partial justice, but let’s summarize each trend/cycle.

Let’s stipulate that technology isn’t a cycle or a trend; its disruptions of existing sectors and institutions accelerate and decelerate over time, but it is woven inseparably into all the trends and cycles listed above.   That said, the emergence of some new technology doesn’t mean the business cycle will be repealed for all time; cycles and trends are influenced by Human Wetware V1.0, an OS developed between 100,000 and 160,000 years ago and still in Version One.

Resource depletion is another background to these trends and cycles: robots and drones will not restore depleted ground water or bring back ocean fisheries.

Central Bank Distortion / Manipulation of Markets

Minus the $21 trillion in central bank asset purchases and trillions more in liquidity/credit programs, would the global economy be growing and global markets be at nosebleed heights? We all know the answer is "no."

Central banks have engineered a "recovery" that looks real enough on the surface, but what are its foundations? Gamed statistics and manipulated markets—in other words, controlling not just the narrative but the information available to market participants.  To achieve the desired outcome—rising equity markets, near-zero bond yields and incentivizing the purchase of risk-on assets—central banks have distorted market information and mechanisms.

The returns on this coordinated distortion are diminishing.  The “buzz” from the initial injections has faded, and now that the monetary authorities are trying to wean the markets off of their drug, the markets have lost the ability to discover the price of assets, risk and capital on their own.

No wonder volatility is rising.

Flooding the economy with trillions in new stimulus worked wonders in the initial stage, but after 9 years, the unintended consequences are metastasizing.

Goosing asset valuations higher in service of “the wealth effect” has widened wealth/ income inequality, creating a New Gilded Age of a few haves and many have-nots. The benefits of the central bank punch bowl—near-zero interest rates, leverage and access to unlimited credit--are reserved for those few at the top of the wealth-power pyramid; very little of the stupendous wealth created out of thin air has trickled down to the bottom 95%.

The relentless rise in asset valuations has pushed homes out of reach of those living in desirable urban/suburban markets, and exposed buyers to the risks of an inevitable reversion to the mean, i.e. a collapse of bubble prices back to historical norms.

Capital is not incentivized to invest in productivity or communities for the long haul; the incentives are for stock buybacks and short-term leveraged speculative bets, forms of mal-investment that hollow out the productive real economy is favor of a momentum-driven financialization boom.

Much of the political resistance troubling the status quo can be traced directly to central bank policies that have exacerbated the New Gilded Age inequalities and excesses. If the central banks can’t find the will to reduce their distortions in service of the few, the political will of the many will do it for them.

The Business Cycle of Credit Expansion & Contraction

The business cycle is a basic structure of any economy based on credit and flows of capital seeking the highest available returns at the lowest available risk. In the expansion stage, households and enterprises borrow more money to boost production and satisfy unmet demand.  Speculators find opportunities in new enterprises and new markets.

In the contraction phase, all the inevitable excesses of freely available credit come home to roost. Marginal investments in new production fail to become profitable and go bust. Marginal household borrowers default, and speculators who bet the farm on momentum plays watch their capital evaporate like mist in Death Valley.

When too much income is being devoted to servicing existing debt, there’s no more net income available to support additional borrowing. Lenders facing losses due to defaults tighten lending standards, and credit—and thus the economy—contracts.

This cycle is an essential dynamic of capitalism.  Central banks have attempted to eliminate the contraction phase that acts as the immune system, washing out bad debt and marginal borrowers.  This has left the economy saddled with “zombie” corporations and debtors that would be liquidated if monetary policies weren’t enabling their feeble survival.

But even the most powerful central banks can’t force firms and individuals to borrow more money when it no longer makes sense to do so. And keeping zombie banks, corporations and households on life support weakens the financial system by piling up the equivalent of dead wood in the forest. When the inevitable conflagration of bad debt catches fire, many of the healthy trees will also be consumed in the flames.

The Yield / Interest Rate Cycle

Many observers are confident interest rates cannot rise due to the deflationary forces in play. Indeed, they predict a future decline in rates back to zero. Perhaps, but history suggests interest rates typically move in long cycles of roughly two or three decades. The current downtrend in rates dates back to 1981, which means the current trend is pushing 40 years. That’s stretching the historical boundaries.

As noted earlier, trends change and then we seek the causes. Interest rates are rising, and perhaps we need no explanation other than reversion to the mean.

The Commodity Cycle

Compared to the stock market (the S&P 500), commodities are at their cyclical lows. As to what happens next, we need only look at a single chart, courtesy of Incrementum AG:

The Stock Market Cycle

We’re implicitly being told that stock markets can loft higher forever, as long as central banks are pumping out the financial stimulus. But nothing goes up forever; valuations get stretched, marginal buyers disappear and doubts about the continuing efficacy of central bank distortions creep in.

The typical Bull Market has a leading sector.  Starting with the mass-market Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, leaders tend to be new industries: railroads, radio, computers, the Internet, etc., or existing industries that have been revolutionized by some innovation: for example, banks freed from regulatory oversight discovered subprime mortgages in the 2000s.

The current leaders—the so-called FAANG stocks—are getting tired.  The tech leaders have reached a scale where growth must slow; the expansion of Facebook from 100 million users to 1 billion was a 10-fold increase; the expansion from 1 billion to 2 billion, a double. Are there even another billion potential users with the bandwidth, devices and interest to join? How much additional revenue can be extracted by selling the data of increasingly marginal users?

The same issues of scale are sapping the growth of Apple, Google, et al.  What happens when Apple has already sold an iPhone to everyone with the means and interest to own one?

There is now political pushback against the quasi-monopolies of big tech. Politicians are being forced to “do something,” i.e. increase regulations, whether they accomplish the intended goal or not.

Valuations and profits are at the top of their respective cycles, the leaders are faltering, victims of their own dominance, and central banks are feeling pressured to reduce the punch bowl of free money for financiers.

Regulation

Democracy is no longer about solving real problems and being held accountable; it’s all about persuading the public that all is well, or distracting them with ginned up controversies. Incumbents get re-elected because they vacuum up enough campaign contributions to buy influence via the mass (corporate) media. They have little incentive to respond to voters, so they don’t.

What they can do is look like they’re doing something other than protecting the cartels and financiers that fund their permanent re-election campaigns. So they propose more regulations, most of which fail to achieve the desired results but succeed in burdening legitimate enterprises to the point of failure. Small enterprises simply fold up when the exhausted owners can no longer bear the burdens and corporations offshore everything that’s over-regulated.

The neoliberal ideology held that the many would benefit if regulations limiting enterprise were eased, and when done judiciously and with common sense, this has functioned as designed. But in the corrupt form of governance that dominates the global economy, regulatory capture means regulations protect cartels and insiders from competition.  Insiders have rigged the system so they can punish competitors and let their cronies off the hook.

The useful regulations protecting the many from the exploitation of the few are being buried by counter-productive “do something” regulations and regulatory moats that protect cartels and insiders.

Globalization

Global trade has a long history, stretching back to the Bronze Age (1500 B.C.). Like every other market, it expands and contracts as conditions change.  The emergence of China (and other nations) since the mid-1980s greatly expanded global trade and capital flows. This distributed new income and prosperity to hundreds of millions of people, and yet it also concentrated much of the newfound wealth in the hands of the few and left many behind.

Nothing goes up forever, not even globalization.  Those left behind are starting to wonder if the good of globalization outweighs the costs.

Demographics

If high-population-growth Africa is set aside, the world’s working age populace is perched on the precipice of decline while the populace of retirees is exploding, not just in the developed world but in the developing world.

 Although many put their hopes on robots generating unlimited wealth that will support the elderly and free the working age populace from labor, the more likely prospect is an economy that cannot fulfill the promises made to retirees back when the worker-retiree ratio was 10-to-1 and not the present-day 2-to-1.

Chris Hamilton has written three excellent explorations of demographics that cover the basics. The bottom line is the trend of rapidly-expanding workforces and modest numbers of dependent retirees has reversed:

To underscore this point, chew on this sobering projection: in the US, for the first time ever, retirees will outnumber kids within just 20 years.

Time To Take Action

So as these 8 key trends and cycles change, what can we as individuals do?

In Part 2: 6 Essential Strategies For Prospering Through The Next Crisis, we detail specific steps to take with your money, your career, your lifestyle, your possessions and your mindset that will dramatically improve your odds of ending up on the winning side of these cycle reversals.

But time is of the essence. Preparation has value only if done in advance, and the turning point is upon us.

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

Does France's latest move PROVE lawfare is on the rise?

Sam Tarling / Stringer | Getty Images

An all-too-familiar story unfolded in France this week: the is law being weaponized against a "far-right" candidate. Does that ring a bell?

Glenn was taken aback earlier this week when he learned that Marine Le Pen, a popular French conservative, had been banned from the 2027 election following a controversial conviction. The ruling shocked French conservatives and foreign politicians alike, many of whom saw Le Pen as France’s best conservative hope. President Trump called it a "very big deal," a view shared by French commentators who fear this marks the end of Le Pen’s political career.

But this isn’t just about France—it’s a symptom of a larger threat looming over the West.

A double standard?

Fmr. President Sarkozy (left) and Fmr. Prime Minister Fillon (right)

BERTRAND GUAY / Contributor, Chesnot / Contributor | Getty Images

As of Sunday, March 30, 2025, Marine Le Pen led the polls with a commanding edge over her rivals, offering French conservatives their strongest shot at the presidency in years. Hours later, that hope crumbled. Found guilty of embezzling EU funds, Le Pen was sentenced to two years of house arrest, fined €100,000 ($108,200), and banned from public office for five years, effective immediately.

Glenn quickly highlighted an apparent double standard. Former President Nicolas Sarkozy and former Prime Minister François Fillon faced similar—or worse—corruption charges, yet neither was barred from office during their political runs. So why Le Pen, and why now? Similar to Trump’s "hush money" trial, legal troubles this late in the election cycle reek of interference. The decision should belong to voters—France’s largest jury—not a courtroom. This appears to be a grave injustice to the French electorate and another crack in democracy’s foundation.

This is NOT about France

Andrei Pungovschi / Stringer | Getty Images

This pattern stretches far beyond France; it’s a tactic we’ve seen before.

In early 2025, Bucharest’s streets erupted in protest after Romania’s Constitutional Court annulled the first round of its presidential election. Călin Georgescu, a rising conservative, had clinched an unexpected victory, only to have it stripped away amid baseless claims of Russian interference. His supporters raged against the decision, seeing it as a theft of their voice.

Both Georgescu and Le Pen echo the legal barrage President Trump endured before his 2024 win. The Left hurled every weapon imaginable at him, unleashing unprecedented lawfare. In America, the Constitution held, and the people’s will prevailed.

Now, with Tesla vandalism targeting Elon Musk’s free-speech stance, a coordinated pushback against freedom is clear—spanning France, Romania, the U.S., and beyond.

The war on free will

Chip Somodevilla / Staff | Getty Images

Trump’s 2024 victory doesn’t mean lawfare is dead; Europe shows it’s thriving.

France and Romania prove its effectiveness, sidelining candidates through courts rather than ballots. Glenn warned us about this years ago—when the powerful can’t win at the polls, they turn to the gavel. It’s a chilling trend of stripping voters of their choice and silencing dissent, all the while pawning it off as justice. The playbook is polished and ready, and America’s turn could come sooner than we think.

Melania Trump's fashion influence inspires the next generation

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First Lady Melania Trump’s impeccable style has long captivated admirers across the globe, but for one young woman, it sparked a creative revolution.

Lorelai, a young Glenn Beck fan who requested a degree of anonymity, first met Glenn while attending America Fest 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona with her grandmother. An aspiring fashion designer and illustrator, Lorelai shared with Glenn some of her sketches of characters from Glenn’s latest book, Chasing Embers. She also explained how Melania Trump became the cornerstone of her artistic journey, inspiring her to craft modest yet beautiful clothing that redefines modern fashion.

Melania Trump’s elegance—stunning, powerful, and undeniably feminine—first captured Lorelai’s attention during the First Lady’s time in the White House. Unlike the casual, often immodest trends dominating her peers’ wardrobes, Melania’s wardrobe exuded grace and sophistication. From tailored coats to flowing gowns, her choices were a masterclass in balancing boldness with dignity, a philosophy that resonated deeply with Lorelai. This admiration grew into inspiration as Lorelai began designing apparel specifically with Melania in mind, aspiring to design pieces that could match the First Lady’s grace. She strove to reflect Melania’s breathtaking style in her sketches in an effort to demonstrate how modesty can be beautiful.

The First Lady’s poised and graceful presence has redefined modesty for the modern era. To Lorelai, the First Lady’s style proves that more fabric offers boundless room for imagination, allowing personality to shine without sacrificing dignity. Melania embodies this perfectly—her fashion commands attention with stunning, memorable elegance. Inspired by this, Lorelai’s mission is to craft clothing for her generation that mirrors Melania’s influence, blending contemporary flair with classic beauty.

After her meeting with Glenn at America Fest, Lorelai’s passion and resolve have only deepened. Through fashion and art, Lorelai hopes to inspire others with the same grace that Melania Trump exemplifies. Below are some of Lorelai's sketches she was eager to share with Glenn.

Melania Trump: First Lady

I really adore First Lady Melania Trump’s grace and timeless beauty. She is extremely intelligent and brave but also strong and poised. Her fashion style displays these traits. I was inspired to create these outfits for our First Lady in hopes that she would see these drawings. -Lorelai

Melania Trump: Lady Liberty

We, as a country, will be celebrating next year our 250th anniversary of independence. The designs that inspired this patriotic gown came from Lady Liberty and Lady Columbia art. I also love our American flag, and this design is a combination of all three. -Lorelai

Chasing Embers Character Art (Ember)

I chose to draw the characters Sky, Azaz and Ember from Glenn Beck and Mikayla G. Hedrick’s Chasing Embers series. -Lorelai

Chasing Embers Concept Art (Ember)

I was inspired to draw a younger and teen version for Sky and Ember. -Lorelai

Chasing Embers Character Art (Sky)

Chasing Embers Concept Art (Azaz)

I also gave multiple outfits designs for Sky and Azaz. I loved that their personalities and character development meant in my mind a wardrobe development too. -Lorelai

Glenn: Government workers bought luxury cars with YOUR tax dollars

Andrew Harnik / Staff | Getty Images

The deep state isn’t a conspiracy theory — it’s a reality. And the corrupt, free-spending Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is just one example of how Washington insiders enrich themselves.

A little-known agency in Washington perfectly encapsulates everything wrong with our bloated, corrupt government: the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. It should be the poster child of everything that Elon Musk is exposing.

The agency was established in 1947 under the Labor Management Relations Act to serve as an independent agency mediating disputes between unions and businesses — a noble mission, perhaps. But like so many government institutions, it has rotted into something far removed from its original purpose.

The FMCS goes beyond mismanagement into blatant corruption and theft.

What was once a mechanism for labor stability has morphed into an unchecked slush fund — an exclusive playground for bureaucrats living high on taxpayer dollars.

The FMCS is a textbook case of government waste, an agency that no one was watching, where employees didn’t even bother showing up for work — some hadn’t for years. And yet they still collected paychecks and spent government money — our money — on their personal luxuries.

Luxury cars and cell phone bills

The Department of Government Efficiency discovered how FMCS employees used government credit cards — intended for official business — to lease luxury cars, cover personal cell phone bills, and even subscribe to USA Today. The agency’s information technology director, James Donnan, apparently billed taxpayers his wife’s cell phone bill, cable TV subscriptions in multiple homes, and personal subscriptions.

FMCS officials commissioned portraits of themselves and hung them in their offices, and you footed the bill. They took exotic vacations and hired their friends and relatives to keep the gravy train rolling.

The FMCS goes beyond mismanagement into blatant corruption and theft — and it went on for decades, unnoticed and unchallenged.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order to abolish the FMCS — a necessary and long-overdue move. But the FMCS is just one of many agencies within the federal government burning through billions of taxpayer dollars. How many more slush funds exist in the shadows, funneling money into the pockets of bureaucrats who produce nothing? How many government-funded NGOs operate in direct opposition to American interests?

Perhaps the most disturbing question is why Americans tolerate such corruption. Why do so many Americans tolerate this? Why is the left — supposedly the party of the people — defending the very institutions that rob working-class Americans blind?

Corruption beyond bureaucracy

The recent rallies led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and their socialist acolytes claim to be a grassroots uprising against corruption and greed. But GPS data from these rallies tells a different story. The majority of attendees aren’t ordinary citizens fed up with the status quo. They’re professional activists — serial agitators who bounce from protest to protest.

Roughly 84% of devices tracked at these rallies were present at multiple Kamala Harris events. A staggering 31% appeared at over 20 separate demonstrations, tied to Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and pro-Palestinian causes.

Many of these organizations receive federal grant money — our tax dollars — and they’re using those funds to protest the very policies that threaten to cut off their financial lifeline.

This isn’t democracy in action. This is political theater — astroturfing perfected. And the American taxpayer is funding it.

Rooting out corruption

Trump was a battering ram against this corrupt system. Elon Musk is a surgeon, meticulously exposing the infection that has festered for decades — and that’s why the leftists hate him even more than they hate Trump. Musk threatens to dismantle the financial web that sustains their entire operation.

When we allow the government to grow unchecked and our leaders to prioritize their own wealth and power over the good of the nation, figures like Trump and Musk are necessary. Rome didn’t fall because of an external invasion but rather due to internal decay that looked an awful lot like what we see today.

We must demand better. We must refuse to tolerate this corruption any longer. The FMCS may be gone, but the fight to root out this deep-seated corruption is far from over.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on TheBlaze.com.

Did the CIA hide the real truth behind JFK's assassination?

Bettmann / Contributor, NurPhoto / Contributor | Getty Images

Many were disappointed by the recent release of the JFK files, frustrated by the apparent lack of answers to decades-old questions. The problem? They’re asking the wrong question.

Everyone wants a "who"—a smoking gun, someone to blame. It’s understandable; Americans crave justice for a slain president, to hold the culprits of one of the 20th century’s greatest crimes accountable. But the real answer isn’t a "who"—it’s a "what." That "what" is the CIA and proof of their nefarious dealings since the 1960s.

In his most recent TV special, Glenn delves into the JFK files, where he found the crucial information that everyone else seemed to miss. Be sure to watch the TV special here.

The CIA's Dirty Fingerprints

While the recent JFK files don’t explicitly pin the assassination on the CIA, the evidence between the lines is compelling.

If you follow Glenn on X, you’ve seen his newest artifact: an exact replica of Lee Harvey Oswald’s rifle. Glenn tested it at the range, attempting to replicate the notoriously difficult shot Oswald allegedly made that fateful day in Dallas. While Glenn shares more takeaways in his TV special, one thing stood out immediately: the rifle’s abysmal quality, its shoddy scope, and the odd caliber of ammunition it uses.

Oswald’s rifle, a Mannlicher-Carcano, is chambered in 6.5mm—an unusual caliber. Much like today, the average gun store in the ‘60s didn’t stock 6.5mm rounds. The largest known supply was owned by the CIA, who had shipped the ammo from Greece after World War II. Suspiciously, there’s no record of where Oswald got his ammunition, but the JFK files confirm that the gun store where he bought the Mannlicher-Carcano had CIA connections.

It’s well-known that Oswald defected to the USSR and lived there before returning to the U.S. The JFK files reveal that from the moment he touched down stateside, the CIA tracked him like a hawk. They followed him across the country and even to Mexico City—but, conveniently, seemed to lose him in Dallas just as President Kennedy arrived. What a coincidence.

Whether by design or gross incompetence, the CIA greased Oswald’s path, letting him slip unhindered into that sixth-floor Book Depository window.

The Cover-Up

SAUL LOEB / Staff | Getty Images

If the JFK files aren’t the smoking gun many hoped for, why did the CIA fight so hard to keep them buried?

The answer is trust. Hard as it may be to imagine today, Americans in the ‘60s trusted their government—at least more than they do now. This cover-up preserved that trust longer than it might have lasted, allowing the CIA to pull off more scandals before the public caught on. From Benghaziand 9/11 to COVID-19 and January 6, the same dirty marks found in the JFK files stain these events. It’s about saving face. The files make the CIA look incompetent at best, complicit at worst.

This might feel like common knowledge today—especially to Glenn’s audience—but 40 or 50 years ago, saying such things could land you in the loony bin. It’s taken 60 years of growing suspicion to reach this point. Imagine if the JFK files had been available back then. Could we have stopped six decades of CIA shenanigans in their tracks?

The thought is chilling.

What Now?

Fotosearch / Stringer | Getty Images

The files don’t name a mastermind or explicitly confirm the darkest JFK assassination conspiracies that have swirled for decades—but they’re far from empty. They expose a disturbing truth: the CIA’s unchecked power in the ‘60s echoes into today.

In one of his most exciting TV specials yet, Glenn delves deep into the files, proving why we can’t ignore these revelations. Stop chasing a "who" and start demanding accountability for the "what." Only by confronting this can we hope to rein in the agency that’s dodged scrutiny for too long.