"Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow but alive, glorious alive, today"

"In order to shine brighter, you need to burn more"

A man who fear pain more than failure will end up tasting both

Peace does not come to the man who refuses to declare war on what is destroying him

🇺🇸🇨🇳Despite Trump’s claim that Xi promised no weapons for Iran, Beijing may still be helping Tehran - quietly.

Trump says Xi pledged not to supply weapons to Iran. Yet rumors swirl of Chinese air-defense systems moving via third parties to hide the trail.

What’s clear is China is already shipping dual-use parts - sensors, semiconductors, and materials for drones and missiles.

Why risk it? Iran supplies China with 90% of its oil exports at a deep discount - cheap energy for Beijing, vital cash for Tehran. Regime change would end that.

A Middle East fight also drains U.S. forces, weakening American deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and rattling Asian allies.

Most valuable of all: China gets a live look at U.S. weapons and vulnerabilities - lessons it can apply in a future Taiwan crisis.

He really looks very dead ☠

👀 Ships involved in transporting military cargo from Iran, as well as a military ship, have been attacked in the Caspian Sea, — Zelenskyy.

Today in 1946, the U.S. carries out the famous "Baker" nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the northern Marshall Islands. The 23-kiloton blast engulfs a fleet of 95 surplus warships, including the carrier Saratoga, Yamamoto's flagship the Nagato and the German cruiser Prinz Eugen.

(ODD SIDEBAR: Hundreds of goats and pigs were placed aboard the vessels to measure the effects of a nuclear blast upon ships' crews. The vast majority of animals perished in the explosion; a handful of surviving animals died later of radiation sickness. Incredibly, one baby pig, known only as #311, somehow survived after suffering minor radiation exposure. She was taken back to the U.S. for further study where she recovered. The animal became a popular Washington D.C. zoo attraction and lived another four years.)

If you ever doubt the power of small decisions:

In this video, a man uses small rectangular blocks laid out on a black board to demonstrate the butterfly effect. one tiny push starts a chain reaction that grows larger and larger with every step.

At first, the movement looks insignificant. one block falls into another. then another. and before you realize it, the entire system is shifting because of a single small action.

It shows how the biggest outcomes rarely begin with big moves. they begin with something so small that most people would ignore it.

One decision.
One habit.
One choice repeated over time.
That is how everything changes.

The butterfly effect is simple but uncomfortable. you never really know which small action will rewrite the future. you only know that nothing stays small forever.

It's time to get clear about what you want
It's time to get clear about what you need
It's time to get clear about what you value
It's time to get clear about what you deserve
It's time to get clear on who you're becoming

160th SOAR - FAFO!! 🇺🇸💥💥🔥

The experts are spelling it out plainly: hitting Russia's main logistics hubs has paralyzed their supply chains. Shortages are already biting deep into the occupied regions and the Muscovite heartland. This is what real attrition looks like when you stop feeding the imperial machine.

Their economy is visibly cracking, hidden unemployment turning real, factories cutting shifts, state banks shedding staff. No amount of propaganda can hide empty shelves and broke clients. Every destroyed hub accelerates the collapse they keep denying.

Keep striking the logistics. Starve the war.

❗️On July 22, units of the 1st Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine “Azov”, together with the SBU, Unmanned Systems Forces, Air Forces, State Border Guard Service of Ukraine and others, repelled a mechanized assault by the 8th and 41st armies and the 90th Tank Division of the Russian Armed Forces in the area of Shakhove. Destroyed: 7 tanks, 6 AFVs, 2 MLRS (including “Tornado-S”), 3 units of special equipment, 47 units of light vehicles; 123 occupiers eliminated, 29 wounded.

❗️“All of this needs to be stopped,” — the president of Kazakhstan proposed to Putin that the war in Ukraine be frozen.

Bonds weren't yielding any returns domestically, so the money didn't stay there. It went out to seek yield, and the biggest destination became US Treasury bonds.

Here's the crucial point.

In 1985, the US established a system to stop Japan. That system kept Japan stagnant for 40 years, and the same system financed the US cheaply for 40 years.

The trap turned into a supply line.

Now that line is closing. Prices are rising in Japan, waiting is costing them money, and government bonds are yielding a real return for the first time. The reason for the money to stay abroad is disappearing.

Insurance companies have also returned for this reason.

Japan isn't leaving this return to chance.

It's proposing to include government bonds in the tax-free program for individual investors and telling large pension funds to increase their weighting in domestic assets.

Both seem like technical adjustments, but what's being done is opening a way for money sitting abroad to return home.

Another announcement came this week.

The Japanese Finance Minister said they are ready to take appropriate and decisive action if necessary.

Market intervention has already been attempted. Japan intervened four times in recent months, spending a total of $72 billion, and the yen did not recover. That leaves interest rates.

There's no need to predict what will happen if interest rates rise; it happened two years ago.

In August 2024, the Bank of Japan raised interest rates to 0.25%.

Funds that borrowed cheaply from Japan and invested globally saw their positions reversed simultaneously, as they now needed more money to repay the same debt. They started selling to repay, and the sell-off spread to markets unrelated to Japan.

The Tokyo stock exchange fell 12.4% in a single day, the largest daily drop since 1987. Two days later, the deputy governor of the central bank stated that they would not raise interest rates while the markets were unstable.

A 0.25% interest rate decision shook the world, and the central bank that made the decision reversed itself within 48 hours.

There's something else. That $1.2 trillion isn't actually the total.

The figure comes from the tracking data published monthly by the US, and that data records where the bond is stored, not who owns it. When a Japanese institution invests its money through a fund in the Cayman Islands, that bond is recorded as Cayman, not Japan.

The Cayman Islands don't have a significant economy. Despite this, they rank high on the list of holders of US bonds.

That's a base of $1.2 trillion.

Moreover, it's the slowest-moving part because the tracked money moves slowly as it passes through institutional channels. The untraceable part is debt-driven, yield-seeking money, and that's the first to exit.

There's also the issue of timing on the US side.

This year, approximately $10 trillion of old debt will be renewed, and the yield on the new bond will be determined by demand. If the most loyal ally withdraws slightly from the table, the remaining creditors will have a justification ready.

Let me add a note here.

Some of this is not certain. Japan hasn't officially confirmed its interventions, and the bond data doesn't show who owns it. But the data points in the same direction.

What's happening here isn't unique to Japan.

Sales don't usually signal the end of a system. Sales are noisy; everyone hears them. A halt in buying is silent; it's just that one less person sits at the table for a day.

Money is where it finds its value.

For many years, the Japanese currency lacked value in its own country, so it went abroad and expanded its reach. If value begins to build up domestically, no one needs to make a separate decision for it to return.

You can track this without waiting for news.

Are insurance companies continuing their monthly bond purchases?

Is Japanese investors reducing their overseas bond purchases?

Is government bond entering the tax-free investment program?

Are large pension funds changing their asset allocation?

If these four points are pointing in the same direction, the issue isn't a one-month fluctuation.

Everyone is still looking at who's selling.

However, in a 40-year-old system, the real break doesn't begin with someone selling, but with someone who buys every month stopping one day.