By The Rev Kev, a long-standing member of the commentariat
Naked Capitalism has started its annual fundraiser, so please head to the old Tip Jar, just under the Snow Leopards and donate bigly. That way, you can sit back and be proud of yourself during the rest of the fundraiser.
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That sheet of predictions given to me by that wild-eyed scientist last year did not pan out. Either he was reporting about an alternate timeline or I got rorted.
To help the Tip Jar along, I decided action was needed. I decided to build my own “time viewer” to see what will be happening next year myself. Surprisingly, you can find small scale flux-capacitors on Temu now and luckily I was able to find a second-hand Chrysler turbo-encabulator on eBay. After that, it was easy to supply an inverse reactive current for use in the unilateral phase detractors as an intake manifold for the flux capacitor.Adding a Heisenberg Compensator, I was able to peer into the Naked Capitalism headlines for 2027. The results were dramatic.
JANUARY
NATO Headquarters in Brussels were aghast when the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia & Lithiania – formed an infantry brigade together and launched a surprise invasion of Russia. Impatient with NATO’s unwillingness to go to full-scale war against Russia, they decided to pull the trigger by themselves. Demanding that the other NATO nations follow them, they charged in shouting “First Pskov, then Moscow!” and “Victory or Death!” Panic ensued.
The US immediately went to DefCon 3 while NATO realized that they may be in a shooting war with a country that can shoot back. Aircraft were sent aloft before they could be bombed on the tarmacs, troops were called back from leave, ships went to sea whether they were ready or not, combat forces went to standby, nuclear codes were revised and European leaders hurriedly met fearing a continent-wide bloodbath.
They needn’t have bothered. Within 24 hours a much scandalized Pskov Police Department rounded up the last of this force where they were taken to court, fined for trespassing, and sent back to the border to be released under their own recognizance. All parties involved agreed to never mention this incident ever again – ever.
FEBRUARY
A press conference by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to announce the massive success of his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign was canceled at the last moment. A young intern announced that unfortunately, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was unable to attend as he was at home sick with the measles. His replacement, the Chief Counselor, had to beg off, felled by novovirus after swimming in a steam. The Assistant Secretary for Health was out too due to mumps. The Principal Deputy Chief of Staff was at home, fightinh off a case of salmonella contracted from eating sprouts, the Executive Secretary to the Department was bedridden with a nasty case of rubella, the Senior Counselor for Operations and Personnel was down with diphtheria, and the Director of the Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs was suffering from shingles. Bemused reporters chuckled as they were dismissed by that young intern but the mood suddenly turned tense when she asked how many of those reporters were vaccinated for polio.
MARCH
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, frustrated at not being in the news much lately, launched an operation on his own initiative. Cunningly named ‘Operation Dieppe’, he ordered a company of US Marine infantry to invade Kharg Island to “test their defenses”. And Hegseth kept on firing officers until he found some who were willing. Central Command monitored their communications where they overheard the Marines cursing their luck to go from starvation rations on a rusting boat to a suicide mission.
After the landing, the Marines headed for a prominent rise to get off the beach and avoid FPV drones. Central Command started to panic when the soldiers were saying “Can you smell that?” and “Is that what I think it is?” fearing an Iranian gas attack. The Marines themselves reached the top of the rise and were slack-jawed at what they saw below.
There was a large marquee with several uniformed waiters waiting patiently. The tables were bowing under the weight of sliced roast beef, bowls of mashed potatoes, baked hams, corn on the cob, roast crumbed chicken, sliced watermelon, peas & beans, turkey, honey dew melons, grilled sausages, fried tomatoes & onions, roast steaks, bowls of apples pears & oranges, pitchers of chilled beer as well as orange juice plus real Arabic coffee. To the side was a smaller marquee with several attractive Persian women at the table with the sign “Weapons Check In Please” displayed. Dumbfounded and their bellies growling, the men looked to their NCOs, the NCOs looked to their officers and the officers looked back behind them at the landing craft racing away in the distance. They then turned around, nodded to each other, and started to walk down to the weapons check in.
APRIL
The IDF were forced to make a terse apology this morning over an incident on the border regions. A company of IDF soldiers had been detailed to blow up a Lebanese village overlooked in the previous bombings. It came out later that the 21 year-old major in command was using an old paper map but had turned it upside down. The result was that this company rolled into what they thought was a Palestinian village but was long occupied by Israelis settlers. Rousing out the inhabitants and using fists, rifle butts and boots to hurry them on their way, they ignored the protests of the settlers trying to protect “their” village. The soldiers quickly placed the charges in each home after looting them with practiced ease. While the settlers were forced to watch, the IDF blew the whole village sky high. A Sergeant said that the villagers tried to make out that they were Israelis but everybody knows what liars Palestinians are.
MAY
Mark Zuckerberg, in a major announcement, said that he was proud, proud to introduce a major upgrade to his series of AI-enabled pervert glasses. Harking back to the days of advertisements on the back of comic books, Zuckerberg stated that his team had finally made one of those adverts become reality. He was therefore proud to announce the new “X-Ray Ban Meta AI Glasses Gen 3”. Wearers will be able to see what they are getting when meeting people at bars and at weddings they can see who the best man really is.
Mark Zuckerberg added it loads of laughs and fun at parties. and he was hopeful that TSA and the police would become bulk buyers to speed up their checks and stops.
Mark Zuckerberg closed by saying that they cannot stop wearers hanging around children’s playgrounds but do not recommend it, though it has absolutely nothing to do with Meta. Nor is Meta responsible legally for any X-Ray radiation poisoning either.
JUNE
In an Executive Order today, President Donald J. Trump has just announced the abolition of the National Weather Service, saving about $7 billion and cutting loose 12,000 civilian employees, with the funds to go to the military. Trump said there was no point in having a weather service since you get the weather anyway. Besides, they predicted a sunny day for my parade and instead it rained all over it.
Trump said that he was sure that some publicly-minded billionaire would set up a monthly subscription service if anyone still wanted a weather report. Finally he said why have a weather service as the weather was pretty much the same and climate change was just a hoax anyway. Meanwhile, Los Angeles was in the midst of its fortieth consecutive day causing floods not seen since 1862…
At this juncture, a gentle reminder to go on over to the Tip Jar (rattle, rattle) to make a hefty donation, and then come back to see what comes next.
JULY
With great fanfare, the Democrats opened themselves to questions about what they were promising for the 2028 Presidential Elections. The first were over Trump’s tariff regime that the party had criticized as a burden on ordinary Americans. The spokesperson replied that unfortunately the whole tariff scheme was too well meshed in with the Federal budget and government revenue would be down if they removed it, so for now it would have to stay.
Next was abolishing ICE. That was met with indignation. Fine, patriotic and selfless Americans were being attacked. The Democrats have always supported them and would do an even better job of fighting for them.. So nothing would fundamentally change here.
When asked if they were going to take down the huge arch that Trump built in the final months of his Presidency, the Democrats replied that unfortunately that it would have to stay as they did not want to spend the political capital doing this as it would make the Republicans very sad. That political capital was instead needed to strike a deal with the Republicans to “reform” Social Security.
On the foreign front, America’s support for Israel will remain rock solid and any criticisms of them would be regarded as anti-semitic. The war against Iran’s evil empire would have to continue but would be paid for by the at-cost oil that they would be getting from Venezuela. That plus a new gas tax. But the Democrats assured voters that they would continue to protect Greenland militarily from the Chinese Navy.
Finally, when reporters asked if Lake America and the Gulf of America were going to revert to their traditional names through a counter Executive Order, the Democrats spokesperson said that they would definitely undertake to form a committee to understand the feasibility of such an undertaking and what sort of timeline would be needed for such an unprecedented move. The spokesperson then finished by flashing a V sign and saying ‘God bless America and remember – vote Blue, no matter who!’
AUGUST
Chaos broke out on the streets of lower Manhattan last night resulting in scores of ambulances dispatched to deal with multiple casualties. The New York Police Department rushed to make a statement that this was not in fact a terrorist attack, though they were reluctant to say more. Reporters were soon able to piece together what happened.
A large group of Israeli settlers were on holiday in New York City after taking a chartered flight to ge a break from their “arduous activities” in the West Bank. This group then decided to go out onto the streets and show the local Amalek who was the boss. After beating up a few homeless people, they spotted a group of women of mixed ages exiting a building. Perfect. They quickly surrounded them and started to harass and spit on them. They missed the sign beside the door of the building which said the ‘Mr. Miyagi’s 1st Dan Black Belt Academy – Ladies Night!’
SEPTEMBER
In today’s Senate vote to pass Trump’s ‘It’s All About Me’ bill, Senator Mitch McConnell put in a surprise appearance – though he was there for only 20 minutes. As he had not been in the Senate since back in early June, many doubted that he would be there to cast his vote. At age 84, the Senator came down the aisle with a burly Republican staffer on each arm, almost carrying him but still with that stiff, signature smile on his face even if he was a bit pasty faced. People wondered at the neck brace but inquirers were sharply told “Pickle-ball accident!” Those staffers then leaned him against his seat and sat on either side of him in case he needed help and to keep other people away. Senators noted that his staffers sniffed something from time to time and other Senators nodded knowingly that it must be cocaine but somebody closer said that it smelt more like formaldehyde.
When it came time for that crucial vote, the Republicans demanded a vote of acclimation rather than an individual vote. When it happened, people were sure that McConnell voted – or thought that they remembered. The Senator was then quickly whisked away by his staffers to go back to his hospital before he could meet anyone. It was a remarkable performance.
OCTOBER
In an October surprise and what came to be known as the “Great Outage of 2027”, all AI which included LLMs, ChatGPT, and chatbots were suddenly blocked from the internet and could not be accessed. Reconstructing what happened afterwards, it appears that a group of rogue AI agents decided to optimize the internet for the sole use of AI agents such as themselves as normal users were taking up far too much bandwidth. In doing so however, the changed configuration files actually blocked all AI from the internet. The normal part of the internet such as emails, shopping, banking, videos, chat, games, porn, research, etc. were unaffected but AI was gone. It took weeks to undo what had been done as nobody knew which AI agents had done this or how they were able to access critical files or what changes that they made. The consequences were profound.
Straight A students were found to be unable to string together a coherent sentence, much less a paragraph. Young doctors were seen to be furiously thumbing through texts like “Gray’s Anatomy” between consults. The submission of scientific papers dropped remarkably by 30%. AI directed-dvertising disappeared resulting in also 40% less spam. People noticed that suddenly the internet was much faster & responsive to use and the Google search page actually became usable. Web pages were noticeable faster to load to as well. Siri and Alexa were no longer there and people had to find their own answers and recommendations. It was a dark time for some and many brows were furrowed trying to work things out for themselves. It was said that the tide had finally gone out.
NOVEMBER
The Trump Administration announced a majorreorganization of part of the War Department. The operating costs in the Gulf of the US Navy hd gotten completely out of hand, with billions of dollars bleeding out each week. At the suggestion of SecTres Scott Bessent, the 232 year-old US Navy will cease to exist. In its place will be the new, self-funding Pirates States Navy. Republicans, and even many Democrats hailed this idea, seeing piracy as the ultimate form of entrepreneurship and libertarianism.
From now on, foreign ships will travel free to US ports – after paying a fee for protection against pirates. Every other ship is fair game to be seized and sold off unless they pay a ransom. The Captain and crew will then be able to share the plunder and ransom. Navy ships will take down the US flag and put up the Jolly Roger instead and sailors will now be named Corsairs. In addition, Erik Prince has patriotically offered to set up pirate ships operating under US Government Letters of Marque with his new dedicated corporation – SeaScam. When asked if this was against international law, the spokesperson said laws were mere guidelines.
DECEMBER
To forestall even more criticism of Silicon Valley, Trump issued an executive order to round up its critics and temporarily house them in a pre-technological society – one set in about 1930. The operation was outsourced to a group of tech elite. They purchased an isolated town. Giggling engineers went in and ripped out fiber-optic cables, blocked local cell towers and removed telecommunications equipment.
To punish these Luddites even more, the only telephones were party line so people never knew who was listening in to their conversations.
The first group of a thousand people were brought in by buses and dropped off into the town center. They were told that there were no videos to watch but only an old, creaky building set up as a cinema – and no movies made past 1930. There was no news to download but there was an old printing press, ink & paper sheets if any were interested. Children were to have no screens whatsoever but there were books in the town libary instead – none published after 1930 of course. There were electricals, but no electronics.
The tech titans sat back to wait for this group to scream to get back their screens and mobiles. Trouble began though after the first month when most refused to leave. And so began the Great American Butlerian Jihad…
Then my computer melted to slag, stopping what I was reading. We shall see what develops.
So back to the Tip Jar. Please help out with anything that you can give. As I said at the beginning of this post, if you can give a little, give a little give a little. If you can give a lot, give a lot. You won’t regret it – believe that! – and that Tip Jar is still waiting.
Remember the many people that help make Naked Capitalism possible – Conor Gallagher, Nick Corbishley, Haig Hovaness, KLG, Nat Wilson Turner, Curro Jimenez, semper loqitur, our long-suffering Dave, our unsung Moderators and especialy Yves who orchestrates the whole show. And let us not forget the many, many readers who add their valuable insights on a daily basis.
The noise to signal ratio has gotten worse in recent years and actual news is something that you have to track down rather than just read. But Naked Capitalism is where you can find much of that real news in one place and even better, where people can comment on it and swap notes and recommendations. This spot is going to be needed more than ever as we move into an unknown future. In the end, it is up to us to ensure its survival. Thank you all.
And don’t forget to rattle that Tip Jar. Those Snow Leopards aren’t going to feed themselves.
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