On the 26th of February in the year 1401, an English priest named William Sawtrey was hauled before his Archbishop to learn whether he would live or die. Sawtrey wasn’t a witch or satanist, or even a criminal. He was, however, an early leader in a breakaway religion known as Lollardism, which both the Church and the English government viewed as a major threat. The Lollards followed the basic plotline of Christianity. But they criticized the heavy taxes that people paid to the Church, and they questioned the ways in which the Church spent its riches. More importantly, the Lollards believed in the separation of church and state. They also strongly opposed war and preached that all Christians should live in peace. Those last points were enough for the English government to treat the Lollards

On the evening of March 5, 1770, a thirteen year old boy named Edward Garrick deliberately provoked a British soldier who was on guard duty outside the Boston Custom House. It was a dumb thing to do. Like a lot of teenagers, Garrick didn’t think before running his mouth. He even poked the soldier in the chest with his finger... until the soldier ultimately struck him in the head with a musket. Now, Boston at the time was a hotbed of revolutionary spirit. Whereas today, people in the northeast seem to be happy to pay outrageous tax rates to incompetent politicians, back in the late 1700s they were ready to go to war over unfair taxation. So when that British soldier struck Edward Garrick, an angry mob quickly formed at the scene. By nightfall the soldier had been reinforced by several armed

1866 was not an auspicious year to start a business in the United States. America had just been devastated from a five year long civil war-- one of the bloodiest conflicts in US history. Plus the country was in the midst of a severe economic recession. 1866 was also the year that a major investment firm in London went bankrupt, triggering a worldwide financial panic. Capital was scarce. Interest rates were high. And overall business conditions were pretty dismal. But despite such obvious challenges, 36-year old Hiram Bond Everest of Rochester, New York still saw tremendous opportunity in the burgeoning oil sector, and he started a business called Vacuum Oil Company. Oil was primarily used for lighting in kerosene lamps at the time. But Everest, a former science teacher, conducted extensive

On Friday morning July 23, 1982, news broke around the world that a consortium of Japanese companies was acquiring Rouge Steel… which until that point had been a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ford Motor Corporation. It was unthinkable: the Japanese were buying up an American steel company??!? But it was just one of the first of many, many more acquisitions to come. Within a few years, Japanese companies and investors had bought up large chunks of prime US real estate, major companies, and just about any US asset they could get their hands on. Sony bought the iconic Columbia Pictures (which had recently released cinematic gems like Ghostbusters and The Karate Kid). Japan’s Bridgestone Corp. snapped up the legendary Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. Mitsubishi bought 51% of the world famous R

On August 4, 1964, two US Navy destroyers were conducting intelligence patrols in the Gulf of Tonkin off the coast of Vietnam, when the task force commander grabbed the radio and reported that they were under attack by three North Vietnamese torpedo boats. The news traveled very quickly all the way to the Pentagon, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara briefed President Lyndon Johnson on the situation. They demanded retaliation. And only a few days later, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution… which essentially authorized full blown military conflict in Vietnam. The only problem, of course, is that the supposed August 4th attack in the Gulf of Tonkin never actually happened. McNamara himself admitted decades later that the attack was made up, and a declassified report from the Nati

You see, the subsidies from the Defense Production Act are worth $10,000 or more per car. Manufacturers are desperate to get their hands on those subsidies. Because noncompliant manufacturers will have to charge $10,000 more for the same car. Whichever manufacturer is the first to produce a 100% Made-in-the-USA EV will dominate the entire market. And there’s simply no way that U.S. car manufacturers that don’t qualify for the credits can stay alive. So there’s nothing they won’t do to get their hands on U.S.-mined lithium. Now, that includes outright purchasing lithium mines to keep competitors from snatching them up first. For example, General Motors has invested $650 million to develop a mine in Nevada. It’s literal vertical integration—and it’s making lithium mines the hottest

The United States used to have a strong grip on the global lithium supply. In 1996, the U.S. produced over a quarter of the world’s lithium. A quarter century later, it’s at less than 1%. The grand total of lithium mines producing in the U.S. now? One. The actual production number is so embarrassing it’s withheld on U.S. Geological Survey reports. Meanwhile, lithium has transitioned from barely-used metal to vital energy component. But it’s estimated that the solitary Silver Lake mine, located in Nevada, produces enough lithium for about 80,000 EVs. That’s less than 1% of what the U.S. will need by 2030—for EVs alone. And that doesn’t even include the demand from utility-scale battery storage to make the switch to renewables. In other words, Silver Lake is a puddle. The Unite

The country that controls the global refined lithium supply will be the superpower of the 21st century. And it’s only a matter of time before that country emerges. Right now, 96% of lithium is mined in just four countries: Australia, Chile, Argentina, and China. But that’s deceptive. Because the countries that have the lithium don’t necessarily own the lithium. You see, China is never content with its own resources. And it is rapidly moving to corner the global lithium market—in a bid to become the only powerful electro-state in the world. To get there, China has systematically steamrolled its way into the other three major lithium mining countries. The second-largest lithium reserve in the world, located in Australia, is underwritten by Ganfeng Lithium, a Chinese company. Greenbushes, the

When Sextus Julius Africanus was born in the city of Jerusalem around the year 160 AD, the Roman Empire was still near the peak of its power. By the time Sextus was born, Antoninus Pius had ruled the empire with a steady hand for more than twenty years; his reign was peaceful and highly effective, and he left behind a strong economy and vast public treasury. The following year in 161 AD, when Sextus was still just a baby, Marcus Aurelius became emperor and ruled wisely for nineteen years as an assiduous, diligent philosopher king. Sextus was a young man just starting to make his way in the world when Marcus Aurelius passed away in 180 AD. And this is when things really started to unravel in Rome. Marcus Aurelius was followed by his complete dirt bag of a son, Commodus (who was probably eve

In the late summer of 408 AD, a barbarian army under the command of Alaric, king of the Visigoths, set out on a leisurely march across the Italian countryside towards the city of Rome… so that he could burn it to the ground. Alaric had been promised money by the Roman government in exchange for a military alliance between Rome and the Visigoths; but just before the money was supposed to have been paid, the Romans canceled the deal. Talk about a bonehead move. Alaric was a decorated warrior at the head of a powerful army. And the Western Roman Empire, by comparison, was barely even functional anymore. The government was bankrupt, the currency was a joke, the economy was in the dumps, the military was weak, the borders were nonexistent… and there was no sense of unity in Roman society. So it

Imagine you have a chocolate bar... You can touch it, hold it, and even take a bite from it. That chocolate bar is like real gold that you can physically see and hold in your hand. Now, instead of a real chocolate bar, imagine there's a picture or a certificate that says you own a piece of that chocolate bar. This piece of paper represents chocolate that you don't actually have - physically - in your possession. In the same way, the paper gold market is a system where people can buy and sell gold without actually owning the physical gold. It works like this: Instead of buying real gold bars or coins, you can buy pieces of paper or digital certificates that represent a certain amount of gold. These pieces of paper or certificates are like promises that say, "Hey, you own this amount of gold

At 11:15am on July 7, 1919, a US Army convoy consisting of 81 military vehicles departed Washington, DC for a perilous journey to San Francisco. The army convoy wasn’t responding to an emergency or preparing for battle. In fact, since World War I had just ended, the United States was shifting focus back to its own domestic challenges. And one of those challenges was the pitiful state of America’s road network. There were hardly any roads in the US back in the early 1900s, and most of the ones that existed weren’t paved. That was actually the entire purpose of the Army’s 3,251 mile cross-country convoy: to demonstrate just how BAD the roads really were. Among the convoy’s participants was a 28-year old Army officer named Dwight Eisenhower, and he wrote extensively about the journey. He obse

Remember, the Federal Reserve is supposedly pulling out all the stops right now to tame inflation. And as part of that campaign, they’ve been aggressively raising interest rates for more than a year without any regard or even awareness for the consequences. Just three days before Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse back in March, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve told Congress that everything in the financial system was just fine. Yet SVB went bust (three days later) in large part BECAUSE of the Fed’s interest rate hikes; the bank had bought $120 billion worth of US government bonds, most of that in 2020 and 2021. Now, US government bonds are supposed to be the ‘safest’ asset class in the world. But even government bonds lose value when interest rates rise; this is the immutable law of the bo

George Washington was already on his heels in late 1777. The British army had recently taken New York and Philadelphia, plus Washington had suffered recent defeats at the Battles of Brandywine and Germantown. Washington knew that unless he could regroup, rearm, and retrain his beleaguered forces, the fledgling American Revolution could soon be lost. So on December 19, 1777, his army of 12,000 marched to their winter encampment site in southeastern Pennsylvania-- an area known as Valley Forge. According to George Washington himself, his men lacked clothing, shoes, food, blankets, etc. giving rise to an almost mythological level of suffering that winter. And it’s true-- conditions were incredibly harsh. There were very few supplies available, and nearly 1 out of every 5 soldiers died from di

It is becoming increasingly clear that the world is losing faith in the United States dollar... and rapidly turning to alternatives. And that’s a huge deal for the United States. For nearly eight decades, the US economy and US government have enjoyed the unparalleled benefits of the dollar being the world’s reserve currency. This means that nearly every government, central bank, commercial bank, and large corporation in the world holds at least some US dollars. Foreign companies use the dollar to trade with one another. Foreign governments and corporations often issue bonds in US dollars. And most of the world’s major commodities, including oil, are priced and traded in US dollars. The dollar’s dominance is so ridiculous that even when Airbus— a European aircraft manufacturer— sells jets t

By the summer of 1563, all of Britain had plunged into chaos over religion and the Reformation. King Henry VIII broke away from the Catholic church back in the 1530s, sparking a near civil war within the kingdom. Protestants killed Catholics, Catholics killed Protestants, and extreme social tensions lasted for decades. Universities were at the heart of this conflict; rather than focus on real subjects like science and mathematics, students and professors became radical social activists and turned their schools into ideological echo chambers. Sound familiar? One of the few students who actually wanted to learn was a Scottish teenager named John Napier; Napier had been enrolled at the University of St. Andrews at the time, but he quickly realized that he would never learn a damn thing in tha

On March 11, 2011, an earthquake in the Pacific Ocean caused a tsunami to strike Japan. You probably remember seeing this in the news, because, directly in the path of the tsunami sat the Fukushima nuclear power plant. As the waves crashed into the reactors, the plant’s cooling systems lost power and the nuclear reactors overheated. Pressure built until explosions spewed radioactive materials into the environment. Now, Japan realized that the Fukishma nuclear accident was a major anomaly... and that the historical data clearly show that nuclear power is safe. So they moved on and continued investing in nuclear. Yet half a world away, Germany decided to shut down its own nuclear power plants because of what happened in Fukishima... even though Germany is obviously not prone to tsunamis and

On Sunday afternoon, September 14, 2008, hundreds of employees of the financial giant Lehman Brothers walked into the bank’s headquarters at 745 Seventh Avenue in New York City to clear out their offices and desks. Lehman was hours away from declaring bankruptcy. And its collapse the next day triggered the worst economic and financial devastation since the Great Depression. The S&P 500 fell by roughly 50%. Unemployment soared. And more than 100 other banks failed over the subsequent 12 months. It was a total disaster. This bank, it turned out, had been using their depositors’ money to buy up special mortgage bonds. But these bonds were so risky that they eventually became known as “toxic securities” or “toxic assets”. These toxic assets were bundles of risky, no-money-down mortgages gi

Upon Marco Polo’s triumphant return to Venice in 1295, he arrived not only very much alive… but also very rich, laden with gold, jade, silk, ivory, porcelain, jewellery, and, of course, noodles. The famed explorer had just spent 20 years exploring the mysteries of the East. He was gone so long, in fact, that people thought he was dead… But Polo’s festive return didn’t last long. Venice’s peace was beset by war against another nation-state, Genoa. War changed everything. Polo was thrown into prison. Not one to waste time, he decided to relay his most important treasures – his memories – to a fellow prisoner… dictating what became an enduring classic: The Travels of Marco Polo. My favourite chapter? “How the Great Khan Causes the Bark of Trees, Made into Something Like Paper, to Pass for Mon

“The way of the successful investor is normally to do nothing – not until you see money lying there, somewhere over in the corner, and all that is left for you to do is go over and pick it up.” - Jim Rogers, investing legend “There are no called strikes in this business. The pitcher just stands there and throws balls at you… And you can sit there and watch thousands of pitches, and finally, you get one right there where you want it, something that you understand – and then you swing.” - Warren Buffett For the wise investor, inaction and patience are almost always his or her friend... Clearly, investing legends like Jim Rogers and Warren Buffett understand these principles. And there’s no disputing the results of those two gentlemen. For most people, sitting on their hands for long periods