Posts by James G. Rickards

After thirty years of relative complacency on the topic of nuclear war, it’s back in the headlines. Yet, during the Cold War (1946-1991), it was front and center as a topic of study and geopolitical strategy. I was a student of international relations beginning in the late 1960s continuing through graduate school in 1974 and…

All wars involve lies and propaganda. That just comes with the territory. The War in Ukraine is no different. The media are filled with stories of heroic Ukrainian “freedom fighters” and how Ukrainian President Zelensky is the “new Churchill”; (in fact, he’s a corrupt oligarch who has arrested political opponents and banned opposition political parties).…

The headlines have been full of stories about U.S., UK, and EU financial sanctions on Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine. The list of sanctions is indeed daunting. They include freezing the reserves of the Central Bank of Russia, banning the top Russian banks (and the Central Bank) from use of the international bank…

The entire course of the coronavirus pandemic from late 2019 to 2022 was one long case study in government incompetence and corruption. The U.S. government helped to start the pandemic by funding gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at the Chinese Wuhan Institute of Virology. Then, the virus escaped the laboratory. Anthony Fauci and his henchmen…

Both the cause of the War in Ukraine and the future course of that war can be understood in terms of NATO membership. NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was established in 1949 as a defensive alliance intended to deter Soviet aggression in Europe in the aftermath of World War II. The original membership consisted…

In the immediate aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. responded with an unprecedented wave of severe economic and financial sanctions. These sanctions included seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs, excluding Russian banks from the international payment message system called SWIFT, freezing the assets of the Central Bank of Russia, prohibiting new investment…

Higher food prices and outright food shortages are not confined to the United States. They are a global phenomenon, as reported here. The causes are the same all over the world. In the first instance, higher energy prices feed into higher costs for fertilizer (made from nitrogen and natural gas) and higher costs of transportation (since…

No one needs to be told about the impact of higher prices for food, gasoline, and other essentials. The price hikes are everywhere; there’s no way to avoid them. This is not limited to luxury goods or resorts. The price hikes are for beef, chicken, eggs, milk, and bread – things you buy and consume…

It’s been one year since gold financier Frank Giustra debated MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor in the ultimate gold vs. bitcoin standoff. New York Times best-selling author Jim Rickards, and Max Keiser from the Keiser Report and Orange Pill Podcast, reflect back on the unsettled debate. They discuss whether gold or bitcoin has a stronger case…

I don’t believe many people grasp the enormity of the global food crisis we’ll be facing in the months ahead. But the world could be on the verge of a massive humanitarian crisis. Let’s dive in… The supply chain collapse preceded the war in Ukraine, but the war has only intensified the problems. You can…