Mckinderism and Halford Mackinder's 1904 'Geographical Pivot of History' framework shows European geopolitical thinking is fundamentally structured around geographic control, but the real competition is over strategic access to resources necessary for collateral chains.

If Trump turns off access to US satellites that Ukraine depends on for drone operations, the Ukraine war ends immediately; Europe cannot sustain the war without US satellite support, and Trump holds absolute leverage.

The eurodollar system survived the worst attack it has ever experienced in early April 2025; SOFR (Secured Overnight Financing Rate) endured intraday moves of 25-40 basis points (where normal is 3-4 basis points) on April 6-9, representing an unprecedented assault on the collateralized repo market.

The dollar is not going into the 'dust bin of history' as widely claimed; instead, the dollar is on the verge of being strengthened in a way and magnitude not seen since the Plaza Accord (1985) or Reagan administration (1980s), driven by Trump's monetary system rebuilding.

The ECB's balance sheet is now €20 trillion with 95% of assets carrying rate risk; Europe will face 9% interest rates in Germany and default-like conditions once the ECB runs out of balance sheet room to intervene.

The United States, as a European settlement project built by people escaping European control, should not accept domination by European oligarchs; Trump as a 'mob boss from Queens' will not 'roll over and die' to European interests and will fight to recover U.S. sovereignty.

The eurodollar system itself (not eurodollars as assets) is a pricing mechanism that was designed by City of London to benefit European financial centers and was never under US control; the US did not control its own monetary policy once the eurodollar market became larger than domestic dollar markets.

Trump, Putin, and Xi are natural fellow travelers in attacking the eurodollar system at its root and branch because all three benefit from dismantling European-controlled collateral chains and redistributing geopolitical power away from the City of London.

The European left's historical resentment over losing control of colonies in North America 250 years ago remains the subtext driving modern European policy, with Britain and France still 'butthurt' over the loss and building the EU around a 'basic conceit' of recovering their lost power.

Tom prefers Marine Le Pen in France to Emmanuel Macron, and doesn't think Macron's prediction that the euro will replace the dollar long-term makes sense—'the only thing the euro is going to buy when this is all over is a guillotine to get rid of you.'

All market moves in both directions eventually end; successful investing requires contrarian discipline: buying when everyone is selling (emotional climax down) and selling when everyone is buying (emotional climax up).

North Florida (Lake City area) has been a depressed agricultural town since the 2008 financial crisis despite Florida's GDP nearly doubling in the past decade, demonstrating how capital repatriation has been blocked from reaching less-developed regions.

Donald Trump entered office and immediately executed shock-and-awe domestic policy against corrupt figures in Washington DC, systematically removing the lieutenants of globalist power structures before moving to international attacks via tariff policy and international trade markets.

Tom is abandoning libertarian principles ('putting them in a box') and supporting Trump as a necessary authoritarian figure ('V' or 'Dark Knight') to fight the current existential battle against globalist power structures, on the basis that morality is secondary to survival in war.

The old system of competitive currency devaluations and races to the bottom is over; Trump has announced a shift to 'bench clearing brawls' (direct power competition with fixed rules) followed by hockey shift changes, implying periodic negotiation and reset rather than continuous devaluation competition.

Gold is likely to correct hard if Trump gets a Ukraine peace deal, potentially from $3,500 down to $3,100, but this does not mean the bull market is over—it's a cyclical correction with new highs to follow 3-4 months later.

Trump operates on a weekly tactical cadence where he leads the agenda Monday-Tuesday, his opponents coordinate over the weekend and counter Wednesday-Thursday with market attacks (equity or bond bombing), and he pivots to new issues by Friday, forcing them to perpetually react rather than set strategy.

When you strip away all the noise and weekly issue-switching by Trump, the common denominator across tariffs, trade war with China, Ukraine peace talks, and energy policy is a single objective: kill the eurodollar system.

The US and Russia have more common interest and should be coordinating to divide access to capital and regional control in the northern hemisphere, as a matter of power politics, rather than being enemies; Europe is the force that wants US and Russia at each other's throats.

The demonetization of gold in 1971 (Nixon closing the gold window) occurred because the eurodollar market had grown larger than US dollar reserves; France under de Gaulle initiated a bank run on US gold at $35/ounce, forcing Nixon to abandon the Bretton Woods standard.