The NIL Frankenstein

Posted on by

The NCAA Power 4 conference commissioners & athletic directors will attend a White House roundtable discussion hosted by Donald Trump on March 6. Invited guests include: Tiger Woods, Nick Saban, Mack Brown, Urban Meyer, Tim Tebow, New England Patriots president Jonathan Kraft, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Fox Sports president Eric Shanks, and ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro.

The issue is NIL spending for top athletes, which has quickly turned into a Frankenstein for the NCAA, which was caught flatfooted from the start and has never come up with a fair & rational system to regulate NIL spending & the transfer portal, so they are now seeking Congressional & Presidential intervention. It seems like there is an athlete suing the NCAA every week now over eligibility, etc, and it’s become a right-to-work issue beyond its institutional control.

The NCAA’s “Power 4” is about football money, most of which comes from television & streaming. The Big 10, SEC, ACC & Big 12 are the Power 4– in that order. SEC commissioners & AD’s are upset because they collectively feel their athletic programs are vastly superior to those of the Big 10, but the NCAA is staffed at every level with Big 10 alumni, so they get favorable rankings, seedings, officiating, national television exposure, etc, which creates friction between the top dogs.

The ACC has suffered greatly in football during this NIL era of the transfer portal and conference expansion/reshuffling, so their school officials aren’t happy. The Big 12 had to rebuild itself after losing Texas & Oklahoma to the SEC a few years back. The Big 12 is doing better with Texas Tech committing $28M to its football program in 2025, which yielded them a coveted CFP playoff spot. But most schools can’t spend like that, and those that can’t are upset about competitive imbalance.

Everything is about football, as it generates the most viewers & largest wagering handles. Therefore, a basketball conference like the Big East has become irrelevant to the NCAA. UConn is still a top national men’s basketball team, but it won’t be able to recover its glory of just a few years ago when it won back-to-back national championships because it doesn’t have football revenue coming in to pay for top NIL basketball athletes like Power 4 conferences can.

On the NCAA agenda now is expanding its football playoffs from 12 teams. Sixteen teams makes the most sense, and always has, but it appears the NCAA is looking at possibly jumping to 20-24 teams for their playoffs. Top Big 10 officials (University of Michigan) insist on byes for Power 4 conference champions, etc. This makes it easier for their teams to win the football championship (as Indiana University did in 2025), verses having a 16-team playoff with no first-round byes.

Understand that the NCAA doesn’t want a fair & level playing field, it wants the Big 10 to win every year and put as many of its teams into the big tournaments (football & basketball) as possible. Generally speaking these days, the SEC qualifies & wins a lot because it spends the most money on NIL athletes, coaches & infrastructure. Everyone is lobbying for rules that give them the biggest advantage, so in the end their is little agreement. Money wins is the bottom line, and there is no way to change that fundamental under capitalism.

The Winter Olympics just concluded and the US had its best medal count ever. The last two Olympic games, Paris 2024 and Milan 2026, excluded Russian athletes, which affected medal totals. NIL spending, particularly for summer games sports such as track & field, swimming & gymnastics means these sports are now NCAA dominated, which is pushing up US Olympic medal wins.

Foreign athletes now get visas to come to a US university and train in their particular sport so they can get paid. Ed O’Bannon v NCAA in 2016 changed everything. College & high school sports are now openly professionalized as the concept of a “student-athlete” has been largely obliterated in bigtime NCAA sports. Today, the top girls high school softball & volleyball players across the country have a NIL profile. That’s how far it has proliferated.

AAU hoops & traveling soccer teams are corporate sponsored and the spending is only going up. The next tennis & golf prodigies are nurtured at ING academies and the like. Everybody wants to win, and seemingly every parent wants their son/daughter to get an athletic scholarship to a Power 4 school where they can play on TV & get paid.

Major universities have become sports factories more than institutions of learning. Back in the 1980’s, SMU and the University of Miami were outlaws in this regard in the eyes of the NCAA. Today they would be heralded as models of excellence in this age where winning in football is all that matters.

So how is Donald Trump going to fix this? To ask the question is to answer it– he won’t. Donald Trump & many of his invited roundtable guests are at the heart of this corruption that is destroying athletics. They don’t care about the athletes or the integrity of the game, they only want to profit & accumulate power from sports.

………….<><><><><><>…………

Milan Winter Olympics observations & thoughts

Posted on by

The perils of promoting oneself as a “Quad God” before taking the ice in front of the world became an Olympic reality for US figure skater Ilia Malinin, who entered the free skate 1st, but placed 8th after two falls during his long program.

It’s painful to watch.

This was Olympic pressure cracking a very talented young man. NBC’s evening coverage from Milan, which is tape-delayed, featured two retired US figure-skaters who mentioned Olympic pressure as nothing an athlete can simulate or be completely prepared for. Tara Lipinski won gold in 1998, and she admitted her knees were shaking going into her long program– which won.

So we can see that every athlete feels the pressure, even those who prevail as champions. It’s all about managing oneself and focusing on the tasks of the competition. When you put yourself under more pressure because you have promoted yourself as a Quad God, then you are setting yourself up for failure. That’s all one can say to the athlete on this.

I’m of a firm belief that figure skating & ice dancing are art-forms that should be appreciated as performance, instead of graded as competition. I feel the same way about diving & gymnastics at the summer Olympics. I understand this opinion is in the minority, but there are points to be understood, even if it doesn’t change your mind.

Let’s start with the ridiculous notion of music being an Olympic event and “best rock concert” wins the gold. The Beatles rock the house, followed by the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, Creedence Clearwater Revival, James Brown, and finally Jimi Hendrix. Judges (trusted old people) will rate their performances, based on criteria defined by them, and determine a winner & podium.

That may sound silly, and it is, but Rolling Stone magazine has been doing this since it started in 1967. More than anything, criticism of music & film and the judging of athletic performances are vehicles to promote personal favorites & devalue disliked acts. They act as political & social filters.

For the last 25 years the corporatized “music Olympics” has transformed from Rolling Stone magazine into American Idol reality TV, and it’s why music sucks so hard today. When industry gatekeepers control every aspect from development & finding talent, to access to resources & media promotion, it becomes nothing more than a popularity contest & pet projects among executives, instead of the kids deciding what they like & get to hear.

Back in the 1960’s, kids loved the Beatles & Stones, and demanded more from the record labels, and what followed was its classic rock era. Today corporate heads manipulate everything you see in the media. The last thing they want is another Bob Dylan revolutionizing things. Today. one must pass through the corporate filter of reality TV before one can be anointed a star.

The Beatles & Rolling Stones wouldn’t be allowed to exist and become famous these days. Their type is too wild & dangerous, too exciting & influential with the kids, and that can’t be allowed to happen. That’s been the corporate philosophy on music & entertainment post-Nirvana.

It’s the same process in sports, which is big money these days because it’s live entertainment brought to the viewer through traditional television & now internet streaming. Sports harvest eyeballs in all demographics, which advertisers love & networks cash in on.

Thus, I don’t get caught up in this Olympics ice dancing judging controversy.

Unfair judging has been part of the Olympics for decades, as these are political slights intended to project power towards an antagonist nation. The actual effect is to degrade an athlete’s performance while raising suspicions of dirty politics undermining the spirit of “fairness & international goodwill” at the Olympics.

Curling is a little known sport, and this is historically my first commentary on it. Team Sweden accused team Canada of cheating during their competition. Video shows illegal touching by Canada, but the sport is not subject to replay review officiating– yet. Cheating at a “gentleman’s” sport which most people don’t even understand or care about reveals that we have a competition problem at the Olympics.

The problem is everyone lies, and the more money that goes into winning, means more cheating & lying to become the “best”. This can raise the pressure to a breaking point for many athletes. “Cracking” happens in many different ways– bad performances, rules cheating, hidden PED use, etc. The drive to be the best involves making difficult decisions and managing serious expectations. Failure can derail a career in minutes. Sponsors want a winning face that pops. Silver medals don’t get it done, as an Olympic athlete needs gold to have a successful post-athletic career in broadcasting or whatever.

Of course, I understand the need to recognize the best in sports, and in competitions where the event is decided by time or some other objective measure, or on the field played by a predetermined set of rules that is officiated on the field, then it is a sport where Olympic medals can be fairly awarded.

X-game events are largely subjectively graded, and should be appreciated as athletic-artistic performances, instead of judged for medals in competition. Let the fans & viewers argue about who is top-tier & best, etc. These performances would be better if they were considered as such. Music, art & entertainment are competitive, so there would be no lack of motivation to be recognized as the best. What would be removed would be tainted judging & corporate dominance in messaging, and sports fans would appreciate that.

Conclusion: I’m not an athlete, I’m a musical artist. The two are similar in that managing your performance is more mental than physical. World class athletes train a lifetime for Olympic competition. Unless there is an injury, it’s typically not physical issues that concern when the time comes to compete. It’s the same in music, as the performer knows how to play, but it’s nerves that can wreck it. Learning to control oneself and be calm in front of an audience is an advanced skill for any performer– artistic and/or athletic. It’s not something anyone is born with, it’s something that can only be learned through hard experience.

It involves breathing, taking in the moment, and realizing where you fit in as far as the bigger picture is concerned. It actually helps to have a bit of contempt for all this crap & people’s expectations, etc. If you feel the only expectations you need to meet are your own, then you are at peace and ready to perform. If you can’t do this, then it is easy to be overwhelmed by the situation, which creates self-doubt & performance slippage.

Lindsey Vonn crashed out of her skiing event (pic above), after trying to compete with a torn ACL. That was her choice as a professional athlete in an individual sport. Team sports are different, where competing injured can set an organization back in the long-term. In those cases, team physicians & management must make the final call, for the safety of that player, other players, as well as the interests of the organization & league. But in individual sports such as skiing, it’s the athlete’s choice.

These athletes consistently push their bodies beyond the breaking point to be the best and amaze the world. All this competition (music, art, sports) falls into the category of entertainment.

You do push yourself to (& beyond) the breaking point when you attempt to be the best in these fields. People admire & are inspired by great music, art & sport, but often don’t really understand the sacrifices, or the heartbreak of coming up short, getting injured, having to retire. No one can sustain the greatness to be the best in any of these entertainment fields for more than a few years. It’s too competitive and always progresses into the future, favoring the next generation.

Old judges & seasoned critics contribute nothing useful or progressive to entertainment. They act as a brake on development & innovation, invariably favoring conservative corporate & political interests. Too much of these Olympics, along with all other sports, is about satisfying the demands of people who put themselves above the athletes in competition.

And finally: Russia & Belarus are once again banned from competing as nations in the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina. Both nations were banned from the 2024 Paris summer games due to the ongoing war with Ukraine. This ban was a political decision made by western imperialism backed by its International Olympic Committee. Only a limited number of individual, pre-vetted athletes from Russia & Belarus can compete as neutral, non-represented participants– and most choose not to. This drastically affects: figure skating, cross country skiing, ice hockey, biathlon & speed skating.

The US is able to run up its medal count at the winter games due to: 1) new (X-game) events which largely favor US athletes; 2) banning Russia from the competition; and 3) massive sports spending in America linked to the NCAA, etc. World politics & corporate sponsorship are the unspoken elephants in the room as far as any international competition goes these days.

It’s not the Russian athletes’ fault that Russia & Ukraine are at war, yet they lose their opportunity for which they have trained a lifetime due to the rulings of corrupt politicians & their puppet institutions. This NATO-provoked proxy war in Ukraine is the work of US, UK & German intelligence, supporting fascists in Kiev in an effort to carve up Russia. None of that has any rightful place in influencing Olympic competition. Imperialist institutions are responsible for unfairly banning Russian athletes, stripping them of their opportunities for Olympic glory. Those are the real politics that underlie all the official lip service on internationalism & the Olympic motto of “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together.”

………….<><><><><><><><><>……………

Who controls bitcoin?

Posted on by

This is the third part of a trilogy discussing a qualitative shift in bitcoin-crypto dynamics. Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.

Bitcoin has settled into the $68-72K range since I last published. Any short or long derivative bets outside that range are being aggressively liquidated. This is how Wall Street controls bitcoin without buying or selling any tokens. Since the analysis of the bitcoin market being manipulated by futures trading (linked & discussed in Part 2), bitcoin’s price has settled where reluctant proponents & mild opponents can agree– for now. But this is a war for existence on all sides. Crypto Kool-Aid drinkers still in the game are battling against bitcoin going to zero, which strong opponents (historical materialists) have always insisted upon.

But ‘mild opponents’, also known as centrists & liberals, see it differently– and fundamentally so. Crypto has no legitimate use value, but it has tremendous criminal value. The actual justification for bitcoin (& all other crypto) is its value on the black market. That is where assets of the CIA, MI5, Mossad, etc, operate. For example, Pussy Riot are a known CIA asset, and they coincidentally have been huge crypto proponents, even issuing their own NFT. Al Qaeda terrorists love crypto, and being paid in bitcoin is gold to them because it is anonymous & largely untraceable. Hence bitcoin’s maintenance of price value, despite there being no new buyers in the financial market.

Michael Saylor keeps borrowing to buy more bitcoin as other whales sell. That’s the total current bitcoin market, outside of what is being mined, which is currently ~450 bitcoins/day. Technical note: bitcoin is “halved” every four years so that mining rate decreases the closer it gets to 21 million– bitcoin’s finite limit set by its unknown creator Satoshi Nakamoto. As of early 2026, 19.9M – 20M bitcoins have been mined and are in existence. It’s helpful to know these technical facts when dealing with Kool-Aid drinkers & understanding the bigger picture.

The CIA demands bitcoin be legal & valuable, and that was conceded by the US Supreme Court during the Joe Biden administration in SEC v Grayscale, which was discussed at length on this blog. To review, Grayscale sought to establish an ETF for bitcoin, and the SEC denied the application, arguing (correctly) it lacked sufficient fraud & manipulation protections. But in August 2023, the right-wing Supreme Court ruled in favor of Grayscale, paving the way for crypto to become a stock exchange, thus giving bitcoin (& crypto) the business legitimacy it desperately needed after the stablecoin & FTX collapses a year earlier.

Bitcoin needs to exist at a wildly inflated value because the criminals who run the world depend on it. These are the Jeffery Epstein clients who are being protected by Trump and the FBI which he now controls. This is now a crypto fascist world we are living in, where everything important is decided behind closed doors with no public disclosure, discussion, or criticism allowed. Trump with the tutelage of Elon Musk (from 2022-25) became crypto fascist, because that’s what he needed to do to stay ahead.

Trump tokens on his crypto exchange World Liberty Financial have apparently lost over 96% of their value, which was claimed be $85/token at IPO in January 2025. Currently the Trump token is ~$3.30. Here are two recent screenshots:

Unsurprisingly, there is a total supply of 100 billion [!!] Trump tokens, already minted & available for purchase, which illustrates fascist greed & ignorance causing faster crypto de-valuation. That’s the inherent rot eating crypto fascism from the inside. Of course there are outside forces too, such as traditional finance on one side & mass worker organization with strike action on the other. Crypto is caught in a Mexican stand-off, and will be the first killed, crushed between the millstones of economic laws & historical truth.

………….<><><><><>…………..

Bitcoin bits & the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping

Posted on by

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent (portrait pic below) was asked the other day by a congressman if crypto was going to be bailed out, and it ended in a shouting match. The biggest bitcoin booster, Michael Saylor, is now deep underwater, as the crypto industry has been loaned hundreds of billions of dollars which they clearly won’t be able to repay. The issue has always been– will crypto be eligible for a taxpayer bailout when doomsday comes?

Here it is spilling out in the public arena after being discussed intensely behind closed doors. Since I last published, bitcoin has crashed & “recovered”– again. Banks have kept loaning to crypto up to this point, but it’s getting tougher to justify. This is the crisis which now imperils the entire capitalist set-up.

Bitcoin has “stabilized” again, let me explain how & why. First, peruse the reader comments to financial articles that discuss Scott Bessent and a possible taxpayer crypto bailout. They’re all negative– no bailout. These are people with money commenting, and none of them have an appetite for crypto. But bitcoin “bounced” again, so obviously the banks have quietly loaned Michael Saylor, etc, more money in another foolish attempt to re-inflate the bubble.

The music is still playing, but for how long? Trump tariffs & crypto are killing the US dollar with inflation. Tariffs make goods more expensive, while crypto (fake money) dilutes the dollar’s value when it is extensively invested-in by the US financial system. Warren Buffet said crypto is “rat poison,” and this is how it works.

Here’s an interesting post from an industry expert who has researched the latest bitcoin crash. In short, analysts now say derivatives are setting the bitcoin price. As liquidations pile up, questions are growing over how much Wall Street is manipulating bitcoin’s price. Recall that bitcoin was originally hyped by Libertarian money-nerds as “deregulated finance,” outside of government & Wall Street control. Today, all the premises underlying bitcoin (including finite supply) have been dispelled by capitalist machinations. For the original Kool-Aid drinkers, the crypto pitcher has run dry, and all that remains for them is a nasty hangover.

Of the $2.6B liquidated in the latest bitcoin crash, $2.1B came from liquidated long bets. “Long” means you bet the market would go up. Derivative short-sellers have been cleaning-up since 10-10-25, which was four months ago when Trump announced 100% tariffs on Chinese exports. Bitcoin started crashing from its $126,000 all-time high. Trump was forced to walk back that threat, but bitcoin kept falling and currently is at ~ $69K, after falling to $60K just two days ago. That cleaned-out all the long-bet suckers (again) down to $60K, and now it has been pumped up a bit and rests at just under $70K. It’s amazing how these crypto price levels magically hold & fluctuate.

Hypothetical question: What are the futures for an “asset” that has no legitimate use value?

Bitcoin is useless in the legitimate market because it is valued in dollars or some other fiat. You may as well just pay for what you need with a dollar, instead of crypto. Most legitimate institutions don’t take crypto because they have no good reason to. ANY illegitimate & criminal organization with any ambition deals in crypto– from the CIA/MI5 & Al Qaeda/ISIS to online scammers & wrench hack kidnappers.

The high profile kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie, mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, reveals the actual use value of bitcoin. Apparently, the kidnappers are demanding payment in bitcoin, because it is online anonymous & virtually untraceable. The image below of the ransom demand sent to a local news station is blurry, just like everything else bitcoin is involved in.

Large bitcoin holders are targets for abduction, as they are often tortured into revealing the key codes to their virtual wallets. This is known as a “wrench hack,” because all that is needed is a wrench to beat the victim into submission. Bitcoin/crypto is intimately linked with these forms of criminal activity, and this is being under-reported in the mass media concerning Nancy Guthrie’s abduction.

We now learn from released documents that Jeffery Epstein was all over crypto from the start. Crypto links this entire corrupt nexus. The US government is now crypto fascist by definition. It’s how it operates behind-the-scenes, as crypto fascist is what the Trump administration intends to become in permanence.

What we can see from all this is that bitcoin has enabled a layer of crypto-criminals. Their activity ranges from online theft & kidnapping to Trump’s exploits in World Liberty Financial– his proprietary crypto exchange (founded in 2024) where he mints worthless Trump tokens and trades them for most established crypto such as bitcoin, along with any cash people will pay for his junk.

The consequences are to be paid by all of us who must endure higher prices with a dollar that is being devalued by crypto. Bitcoin does this by sucking-up money that could be better invested elsewhere, while undermining the value of fiat currency. Wall Street loans the money to crypto companies, then wins all its manipulated derivatives bets. That’s called getting paid on both ends, with the US taxpayers eventually being made to pay the bond holders & banks for all their losses on bad crypto loans.

………..<><><><><><><>………..

Crypto notes on the Fed chairman & Jeffery Epstein

Posted on by

Kevin Warsh, Trump’s surprise nominee for new Fed chairman, is pro-crypto. Kevin Warsh has recounted seeing the original bitcoin white paper in 2011 and recognizes it as “innovative software.” Crypto critics point out that blockchain technology is an expensive waste of electricity that can’t scaled into mainstream finance because it’s too clunky & slow, but those facts are to be ignored. “Bitcoin is not a trouble, but policy signal,” according to Kevin Warsh. This is exactly what Trump demanded from his new Fed chairman.

Crypto is the publicly unstated conflict between Trump & current Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell. Powell was nominated by Trump in 2018, but that was before he went in on crypto. Trump called crypto “a scam” through 2021, but between his presidential terms he became enamored with bitcoin, all around the time he was partnering with Elon Musk, who coincidentally joined the Trump White House to help Trump with economic policy as head of DOGE, which is the name of Musk’s proprietary meme crypto– dogecoin.

Warren Buffet and JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon represent anti-crypto billionaire capitalist interests. Their influence on monetary policy is significant and it extends past the Federal Reserve, which should be understood as a giant bank that loans money to billionaire corporations, financial institutions & individuals.

Everything rests on the strength of the US dollar, which since 1971, has been a fiat currency that floats against a global basket of currencies. Globally, all oil transactions are settled in US dollars (petro-dollars), which adds weight & importance to that currency. All the fighting in the Middle East, which starts with Zionist Israel, is about maintaining American control over the most valuable commodities in the modern world– oil & natural gas.

Without these commodities, there is no transportation or electricity, meaning there is no modern economy and we’re back to horses & candles. The problem is oil & gas consumption causes global warming, which is getting worse every day and is thus unsustainable.

The drive of US imperialism to monopolize the global oil wealth by partnering with a criminal & terrorist Zionist organization in Israel to be a permanent garrison in the Middle East is doomed to historical failure & class blowback. Kidnapping the leader of Venezuela during an armed attack against that country, all to seize that nation’s oil resources, will not stand. Bleeding Stalinist-capitalist ruled Russia into a dirty war with Ukraine which the US/UK & German intelligence provoked after decades of effort is completely misguided and has no chance of succeeding, yet it continues because it’s what US billionaires demand.

The most powerful force of capitalism is the global bond market, in which the US is the dominant participant accounting for roughly 40%. The bond market represents the global debt & credit market, estimated to be $119 trillion worldwide and $46 trillion for the US market, according to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).

Unlike bank loans, bonds may be held by retail investors, and are more frequently traded than loans. Bonds are considered a “safe haven” for big investors. If the bond market tanks, capitalism crashes and the party is over– for good. Therefore the bond market is the most-protected, most sacred institution of capitalism, an all-powerful global institution in a world of international commerce.

If you are a centi-millionaire or billionaire, then your money, assets & investments are all protected by the bond market. You can’t defy or run away from the bond market. The only social force capable of defeating the bond market is an internationally united working class & youth. A sustained & organized general strike globally chokes off all capital flow to the bond market. That’s the only way to kill the bond market, short of mutually assured destruction.

The latest Jeffery Epstein files release has revealed his links to early crypto. This should surprise no one. Crypto was invented as a tool to evade taxes & hide illicit financial transactions. Trafficking underage girls for sex with billionaires, etc, is to the point of crypto.

We now know that Jeffery Epstein was an early investor in Coinbase, which is the largest US-based crypto exchange & bitcoin custodian. All kinds of professional sports sponsorships are being used these days to legitimize crypto in the public mind, and Brian Armstrong’s Coinbase (founded 2012) is perhaps the most prominent.

What was released was surely only the tip of the iceberg as far as Jeffery Epstein’s involvement in crypto. Bitcoin was invented for people like him, and now we the people learn he claimed to have corresponded with the infamous & unknown Satoshi Nakamoto, the person who invented bitcoin. It’s not at all surprising that someone like Jeffery Epstein would seek out these people and do business (invest) with them.

Bonds are paper which represent wealth & power. The people who own this paper don’t want it to lose its value. Crypto is so unreal, yet it has been so heavily promoted as legitimate to the point where a segment of billionaires are all-in on it. When crypto crashes to the point of no return, that’s when the bond market will be forced to move into action in the interest of all the banks, hedge funds, and big investors who have loaned their money to crypto companies that are going bankrupt.

Michael Saylor’s Strategy is the most illustrative example of this in the US. Bitcoin has fallen from it’s high of ~$125K in early October to ~$74K as of this publication. All during this free fall he has been buying bitcoin. He does this to maintain the price. It has been widely reported that he has paid an average of ~$76K/bitcoin. Which means he’s underwater by $2K/bitcoin as of this writing.

On top of that, Michael Saylor has financed all the bitcoin buys with stock swaps & borrowed money, meaning his corporate ownership is diluted and he’s in deep debt which he can’t repay by selling bitcoin because it’s worth less than what he owes. Each day the interest on what he owes goes up, while his stack of bitcoin loses value. As sellers continue to leave the market, they implore Michael Saylor to “keep buying,” as he is the only one holding up bitcoin (& therefore all of crypto) under current market conditions.

Bitcoin can’t be allowed to go to zero, which it would have done dozens of times already if the “market” hadn’t prevented it from happening. That “market” is the bond market. The bond market is bigger than any presidency or military. The bond market is why presidents & militaries exist. It’s why ICE exists.

The ultimate enemy in the fight against this evil is the bond market, which crystallizes the essence of capitalist inequality. It’s largely faceless, yet viciously ruthless, and it answers & apologizes to no one. It is the bond market that must be abolished for humanity to flourish.

…………<><><><><><><>…………

Long COVID recovery protocol

Posted on by

If you’ve been exposed to COVID and are over age 40, you probably have had issues with Long COVID. This novel coronavirus evolved as a biological crossover in a Wuhan wet market in late 2019. Despite extensive containment measures instituted by the Chinese government, the virus escaped China’s borders and was allowed to run rampant in every other nation in 2020. The result is that we are now living (& dying) with COVID as a forever pandemic for humanity. That was (& is) the capitalist response to COVID.

The last serious research I’ve read said the average American has been infected with COVID nearly 5 times. That number goes up with each new study on this. COVID is a highly transmissible airborne pathogen. It’s also a nasty bug that gets in your body and stays.

Any dead zones in your body, particularly the lower back, are safe harbors for COVID. A calcified & immobilized spine is surrounded by stubborn fat. Fat is an infection, physiologically speaking. Muscle has herniated & atrophied in these areas, and there is no longer any vascularity. It’s your blood system that delivers histamines, white blood cells, leukocytes, eosinophils, and a host of other immune response cells. But if the area of the body from your bellybutton to your pubic region is dead, the COVID lives there, safe from your immune system.

COVID is constantly multiplying in there, taxing your immune system long term. When taken ill with a flu virus, Long COVID really goes into action, attempting to take over a weakened host. Total body weakness & lethargy are often the result. This virus must be dealt with seriously, otherwise it will eventually kill you.

Your spine is a lever. This means that force on one end is translated to the opposite end. This means that lower back stiffness is partially treated with head & neck physical therapy. This means gentle but consistent stretching of the opposite ends, searching for breakthroughs that allow ‘juice’ to get back into your spine. An old spine is stiff & ossified, a young (healthy) spine is flexible & vascularized. Spinal fluid, cartilage, splanchnic, tendons & ligaments, etc, all need juice to retain spinal health & proper back function.

The ossified areas of a spine is where the Long COVID lives. This means to rid yourself of this horrible affliction, you must make your spine younger & healthier through daily stretching & targeted body-weight exercise. There is no other way. This involves a longterm commitment to health which includes sleep & rest, nutrition & personal hygiene. You need to improve in all these areas to be free of COVID.

The governments of the world made the decision long ago to let COVID rip. The ruling elites insisted upon this as a weapon of class war. it is the working people & youth who are most exposed to COVID and suffer the most from it. Masking is of limited value at this point, since COVID is ubiquitous and most masks are inadequate. You have to make yourself healthier and be ready to deal with the next COVID variant that comes.

I’ve published much on hip & back injuries, and how to recover from them. It’s the same concept when dealing with COVID. You need to re-juice your entire spine from the cranial nerves in your head to the sacral vertebrae in your butt. Use any histamine response from illness to help break up the calcifications that are deep in your spine. This means stretching especially when you are ill, which is uncomfortable, but will speed along your rehabilitation in the long run. It’s all about moving energy through your entire body and building on those daily gains.

When you get sick with Long COVID, a flu bug hits you and activates the COVID deep inside your body, so you spread the COVID variants you carry. This mixes with new variants and we have a perpetual cycle of infection that gets nastier & deadlier.

COVID will now have to be eradicated in this manner, slowly and through case-by-case therapy. Human society could have eradicated this COVID problem from the start with lockdowns, quarantining, contact tracing & masking– ie, medical science. But capitalist politicians & their corporate paymasters insisted they knew better and this is the result.

Daily back stretching & core strengthening are the exercises that matter most in treating Long COVID. This pandemic is a warning to humanity that we must do better in every phase, otherwise we are doomed to be defeated by a virus & ignorance. Make your trunk stronger & more flexible and your COVID cough will slowly disappear for good.

………….<><><><><><><>………….

Finally, a helpful AI application!!

Posted on by

Socialism AI, introduced by the WSWS on December 12, proves that you don’t need billions (or even millions) of dollars to build an effective AI system.

I’ve queried Socialism AI and it is most impressive. The point is that anyone with the technical know-how & initiative can build a useful AI system, so trying to monopolize this technology is a futile waste of money. The WSWS just launched the smartest AI system because they have the smartest people. That’s how you harness Artificial Intelligence to its full potential.

To understand the burning issues here it is necessary to describe the current ecosystem. Crypto & AI are deeply connected among the ruling elites, ideologically & financially, and bitcoin is the weakest link. There is little-to-no liquidity left in bitcoin, as a few whales such as Michael Saylor are the only remaining buyers propping up this nearly-dead market. It’s the same process in both fields, as monopoly capitalists try to control the technology, the difference is AI has real world value and bitcoin/crypto doesn’t. That’s why the upcoming financial crash is more likely to start with bitcoin, but AI giants will quickly get sucked in and require bailouts to survive.

Oppositional ideological response to Socialism AI mostly resembles the Luddites. Originally opposed to industrial machinery in England in the early 19-century on the grounds that it eliminated jobs & reduced pay & quality of output, Luddites destroyed machinery as a political response. This reactionary movement was crushed by early capitalism, as the owners of the machinery enlisted their government, the police & military, goon squads, etc, to rid themselves of these pests. The industrial revolution continued unabated by Luddism, and it has since been a derogatory political term, representing a reactionary dead end. Those who rail against AI are Luddites.

The fundamental problem with ChatGPT, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon, etc, versions of AI is their pro-corporate bias, which claims “safe” or “neutral” reasoning on political issues, which always means pro-capitalist bias. The morality of capitalism is unquestionable as these AI systems are developed by (and in the interests of) the richest people in the world. Too much of AI is GIGO– garbage in, garbage out.

The problem is you can’t be intelligent if your reasoning is built on false assumptions. This severely limits all versions of corporate AI, and it is why it’s destined to go bankrupt and trigger a devastating global financial crash in the near future.

AI as a tool today is comparable to Wikipedia (& everything else) coming online in the early 2000’s. It was a huge advance, but pro-corporate bias kills much of its usefulness. Wikipedia can accurately recite hard science subjects such as physics & math, and do well in geology & archeology, but its pro-corporate bias kills its credibility in the fields of history, economics & politics. Social sciences are distorted through a pro-capitalist ideological lens. Many Wikipedia biographies are outright fakes– see Pussy Riot.

Socialism AI from the WSWS seeks to rectify that intellectual & moral injustice. Based on historical materialism and objective truth, Socialism AI is a much improved political tool for working people & youth seeking serious answers– anywhere, anytime. Give it a try.

………..<><><><><><><><><><>……….

Michael Jordan v NASCAR

Posted on by

Yesterday, Michael Jordan and his 23XI Racing organization won a significant settlement in court from NASCAR. After over a week of brutal testimony & evidence disclosure, NASCAR was compelled to settle the ‘team charter’ issue in favor of 23XI Racing. It was becoming clear to the court that NASCAR has been engaging in unfair monopoly practices, thus a settlement was reached.

Charters were introduced by NASCAR in 2016 as a new revenue stream for the France family which owns NASCAR. Team owners have since been required to buy a charter, which is represented by the number on the car. These charters had expiration dates, meaning they were a perpetual rent for team owners and had to be renewed every few years. Charters were subject to arbitrary price increases and other NASCAR-governed rules & sanctions. This meant if NASCAR didn’t like an owner’s style, or whatever, teams could get jerked around and not granted a charter, or held hostage by an outrageous price increase or unfair terms.

This 23XI/NASCAR settlement establishes the legal concept that charters are equivalent to franchises in other sports, and therefore are permanent and can’t be revoked without due process. That’s the significance of this settlement.

Michael Jordan led the legal fight here, and it will be one of his most-respected achievements– which is saying something. For decades, team owners, particularly non-super teams, have been squeezed by the France family and their representatives, to the detriment of the sport. As the charter system went into effect, NASCAR signed a mega-media deal with Fox & NBC and revenue exploded. This came at time time when old stars were retiring and the next generation of drivers were coming to the fore. Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliot & Bubba Wallace were among the new drivers, as Dale Earnhardt Jr and Danica Patrick were retiring.

NASCAR introduced stage racing at that time because it was what the sponsors demanded after NASCAR got it’s mega-media deal. Dale Jr was perhaps the most beloved driver in NASCAR history, the son of a highly-controversial 7-time series champion who died at Daytona and left his legacy to his son, who was never the competitor his father was, but inherited all his glory and became NASCAR’s most popular driver. Popularity counts in racing because it’s all about attracting & maintain sponsorship. Racing costs a lot of money, and without sponsors a team is dead.

Michael Jordan wants to win, we all know that. The super-teams in NASCAR today are: Roger Penske, Joe Gibbs, and Rick Hendricks. None of these team owners liked the charter system because it added extra expense to an already costly venture. There’s an industry saying that goes, the best way to make a small fortune is to start with a large fortune and run a racing team. The only people who have been profiting from NASCAR’s revenue boom are the France family & it’s representatives, while the top teams & drivers are still scrambling to keep ahead while staying in business. Stewart-Haas racing no long exists in the NASCAR Cup Series because it was too expensive for them to compete. Michael Jordan ended up buying one of their charters to expand his 23XI team and that was part of this lawsuit which was just settled.

Tyler Reddick (#45 car), Bubba Wallace (#23 car), and Riley Herbst (#35 car) are the three NASCAR charters 23XI currently owns. Twenty-three eleven racing has Denny Hamlin as a co-owner with Michael Jordan. Hamlin still drives for Joe Gibbs in the #11 car, which explains the team name.

But it was Michael Jordan who made this happen. It took someone with his sensibility & willingness to fight against an injustice to make this happen. Many ex-drivers have started teams and then gone bankrupt, but none had the willingness to take on NASCAR. These ex-drivers & old-timers have too much reverence for NASCAR.

Michael Jordan comes from the NBA, and never tolerated disrespect or unfair bias. NASCAR has taken the historical position of disrespecting everyone outside its inner circle, and doing whatever it pleases. This meant starving teams of revenue needed to help the sport grow. When teams are going out of business and leaving the sport, this creates difficulties for drivers & crew. What is known as ‘silly season’ in NASCAR becomes an annual scramble for spots on the best teams and a fight for survival for small teams. That isn’t good for the sport, but the only thing NASCAR (AKA: the France family) cares about is maximizing revenue for itself. To be clear, MJ & his legal team just kicked NASCAR’s ass on that, and it’s about time.

It took an icon to do it. The only other icon mentioned in this article is Danica Patrick and the comparison is apt. Danica Patrick came into NASCAR at the end of her driving career, and was disrespected & mistreated by the people who run the sport, despite the fact she made them a lot of money. Danica Patrick brought a new generation of young fans into the sport and was such a big icon that NASCAR felt threatened & diminished by her presence. She had no protection from NASCAR’s abuse because she was just a driver, not a team owner.

But when an icon like Michael Jordan invests as an owner, there is no way he is going to let NASCAR disrespect him. MJ has the clout as owner of 23XI Racing. The best way I can explain this dynamic is by imagining a NBA referee who insisted on making bad calls against Michael Jordan. How long do you think that would be tolerated? First, MJ is going to be barking at the ref, all game. Then when asked about it after, he will share a few pointed thoughts. NBA commissioner David Stern (consummate businessman) would soon get involved, and who do you think he would side with– a nobody official who is out-of-line, or Michael Jordan?

It’s respect for greatness & money that drives these conclusions. Michael Jordan will not be cheated, by a crappy ref or the France family which owns NASCAR. The lesson here is that it takes an icon with clout to win against such a powerful & corrupt organization. With that said, these entities (NASCAR & 23XI) now need to make-up and learn to co-exist, and it is highly questionable whether that can happen, because there is one side (NASCAR) that always insists on cheating the rules and another that philosophically won’t allow it.

………<><><><><><>………

Bitcoin’s latest death spiral

Posted on by

Preface: This is a serial that went one week– Sunday, November 16 through Sunday, November 23. Note that if you see ‘time stamps’ indicating different days of publication, that’s a serial. I don’t know when a serial is going to end, until it ends and I find out about it. There is a lag between when it actually ends, and me finding out, because I’m not privy to the closed-door discussions of the financial & political elites who run the world. I can only know & understand them through the propaganda they disseminate, which must be carefully deciphered to be correctly understood by the kids & working masses. The financial elites have decided (by indicating a December Fed rate cut) that bitcoin can’t be allowed to collapse, as it was doing again this past week. This blog (which specializes in crypto criticism) chronicled the process, and since a new level of “stability” has been reached, this story is over– for now. That’s how this serial ends. Come find me again when the next bitcoin crash happens, it won’t be long now. It won’t be very long.

Bitcoin has had quite a roller coaster run since Trump was elected last November. Exactly one year ago, bitcoin was valued at $89,875.56 on Coindesk’s tracker. It was at $106,188.14 on January 20, when Trump took office for this second term. Trump launched his own crypto, held a crypto summit, and had legislation passed that gave legitimacy & bailout protection to the industry.

Bitcoin peaked at $124,714.85 on October 4, 2025.

Less than a week later, on October 10, President Trump announced an additional 100% tariff on China, on top of the 30% already in place, to be effective on November 1. Bitcoin has been dropping ever since. This, and the reduced likelihood of a December Fed interest rate cut has sent bitcoin plunging. Here’s a recent screenshot of the Coindesk bitcoin ticker over the last year.

Bitcoin now faces a key $94-92K support test, with any dip below that level threatening a deeper fall to possibly $70K (or worse) amid massive liquidity outflows. For some reason, the crypto industry has chosen this price level ($92-94K) as a key point in its development. It may take some time, since there is such strong institutional support at $92-94K, but when this level is breached, apparently there isn’t much institutional support below this level until ~$70-74K. If that happens, all but the biggest crypto whales in bitcoin will be wiped out.

The future existence of crypto is being tested right now. Crypto whales are burning cash (while secretly selling bitcoin) to keep bitcoin afloat, as small investors are being liquidated, while new investors are too few. The entire crypto market is in ‘Extreme Fear’ according to industry analysts. Crypto whale Elon Musk stated less than a week ago that bitcoin & AI were the way out of the US $38T debt. In fact, bitcoin is only the latest manifestation of a problem that has created such an unpayable mountain of debt.

Update: Mon 17 Nov 2025 1:00 PM CST

Right now crypto whales are buying bitcoin, as they burn through their cash trying to prop up its market value. As discussed above, $92-94K is a strong institutional price level. What this means is that crypto whales have all agreed that this price level must be strongly supported with cash infusions when necessary, in order to maintain the bubble.

Holding over 1000 BTC is the definition of a whale. Right now there are 1300-1500 bitcoin whales in existence, but not all whales are created equally. Elon Musk is a huge whale, but his influence has been muted somewhat by his conflicts with Donald Trump, who is now also a whale– along with his family.

Michael Saylor is a very influential crypto whale. According to Coindesk, Michael Saylor now holds “649,870 BTC acquired for $48.37 billion, or $74,433 each.” This explains the $74K price level, discussed above. Whatever the average price a large whale has paid for their bitcoin becomes an institutional price level. No market has ever been more manipulated by insider trading than bitcoin/crypto.

As of this writing bitcoin is ~$92.5K. Under intense downward pressure, crypto whales now have two conflicting strategies. The biggest such as Michael Saylor are burning cash to buy bitcoin. This props up the market and increases their monopoly power in crypto. Some smaller whales are selling their bitcoin. Fear has created panic, so some whales are cashing out.

Instead of big fish eating little fish, which is crypto business as usual, it’s now whales eating whales which isn’t sustainable. Once the skittish whales have sold out, the hardcore whales have a larger stake in bitcoin– with no buyers but themselves. No newbie wants to enter the crypto market when it’s crashing, as it is now. So the question becomes: How long can the crypto whales hold out? That answer depends on their available cash, access to credit, and the willingness of Congress to give them a bailout.

Sun 23 Nov 2025 09:05 AM CST

On Friday November 21, Federal Reserve Bank of New York president John Williams announced a possible rate cut in December. Since then, bitcoin which had plunged to ~$80K, has made a miraculous recovery, now at $86K and rising again. This is how the capitalist market operates, workers who need a loan can’t get one, while the Fed always makes more money available to crypto.

Clearly, the crypto whales have exerted their nefarious influence again, implying if bitcoin goes down, the whole stock market could collapse. That was the content of Bloomberg, Barron’s, etc, articles before a possible rate cut (now estimated at 70%) was announced on Friday. Crypto is intimately linked to AI, so whenever you read about the “AI bubble”, think bitcoin, as big banks & universities (such as Harvard) are in on bitcoin. This episode once again reveals that crypto/bitcoin is the weakest link in the capitalist fake economy.

Top comment I read on Yahoo! during this time-frame: “Something is wrong when $19 Billion in liquidations causes a 20 something percent drop in an “asset” with a $1.9 Trillion market cap. That is only a 1% liquidation. There are much bigger dominoes to fall.”

………<><><><><><><>……..

Arch rivals collide in Athens

Posted on by

Preface: This is the epilogue to NIL Heisman 2025: Arch Manning

Georgia mauled Texas 35-10 last night as the Longhorns were severely outplayed & outcoached. Arch Manning was mediocre in his performance. Clearly, this is still a young kid trying to figure out college football. The expectations he faces, due to his family name, are impossible.

Most glaringly, Arch Manning needs to improve his accuracy & decision making. I also don’t see this ‘great athlete’ scouts have been raving about. He looked slow against that Georgia defense. Arch Manning knows how to play QB & read defenses, those are his strengths along with his physical size & arm strength. But he needs two more years of college play with a lot of improvement before he’s NFL-ready. NIL deals & the transfer portal make that decision easier for Arch Manning.

The satire in my previous piece was not directed at Arch Manning, as much as it was towards the crazy system that now exists in the NCAA. Arch Manning was being hyped pre-season as the top pick in the 2026 NFL draft. Two things influenced that: 1) the family name; and 2) the $6.8M in NIL money. That wins the NIL Heisman, but little else. That gets eyeballs on the TV, but for what? To watch Arch Manning not live up to expectations. That’s called setting someone up to fail, and it’s all for the money, which is a shame.

What Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart is saying above is that it takes a team to win. Georgia, like all the other SEC programs, is spending money, finding NIL deals for its athletes in an attempt to win a national championship. It’s that, or bust every year for these elite programs. But paying one guy $6.8M makes your team all about him, and if he isn’t ready, then you have nothing, as Kirby Smart says.

Note that my satirical pre-game discussion has even more bite after the game. Sports fans were reading my satirical piece, many anticipating a great performance by Arch Manning, but were disappointed. I made no predictions on the outcome, but notice that everything discussed still holds true & maintains its relevance. That’s because what I’m discussing is bigger than the game on the field. These games are more circuses than real competition anymore, so we need to look at them differently than we have in the past.

………….<><><><><><>…………..