According to much popular thinking, “monopolies” are seen as undermining individuals’ economic well-being. For instance, monopolies are often blamed for increases in the prices of goods and services, often called inflation. Also, monopolies undermine the efficient functioning of the market economy by their ability to influence the prices and the quantity of goods and services.

Modern economic policies increasingly give an impression of unreality. Governments announce reassuring indicators while individuals experience something entirely different: persistent inflation, housing shortages, stagnating purchasing power. This gap is not merely an analytical error. It reveals a deeper problem: the state no longer reacts to economic reality as it is lived, but to a reconstructed version built from models, indicators, and abstract categories.

The US president is, quite literally, throwing the world into disarray to the point that the traditional safe-haven asset, gold, has gone from significant gains to double-digit weekly declines. From a peak exceeding $5,600 per troy ounce towards the end of January of this year, it has fallen by more than 20 percent, the most abrupt—and unimaginable—drop in its history.

In a free market, the interest rate does one essential job: it tells the truth about time. When households save more, they express a preference for consuming later rather than now. The supply of loanable funds rises, interest rates fall, and entrepreneurs receive an accurate signal that real resources have been freed up for longer-term investment. The production structure lengthens—more capital-intensive projects become viable—and the economy’s capacity expands sustainably.

Autonomous AI agents are becoming active economic participants on both sides of market transactions. Enterprise platforms now embed what vendors call “touchless operations,” with agents executing procurement decisions without human review. Blockchain networks let AI agents hold wallets, settle payments, and rebalance portfolios autonomously.

With an American imprimatur, Israel is on a “genocidal rampage” in Southern Lebanon, where it blew-up 350 human beings in the span of minutes, on April 9.