What
happens in a recession induced financial crisis?
Greed is quickly replaced by Fear.
Core survival
instincts: The door slamming shut: Everything that was possible in the risk-on
euphoria of greed; becomes impossible in the risk-off wilderness of fear.
I’m Not a Doctor!
But Dr. Wojak is so read on and make up your own mind…
Statins Good or Statins Bad??
Heart and blood vessel problems are responsible for over 30% of all deaths worldwide—about 20 million deaths each year. For half a century, the public has been deceived into believing that cholesterol is a villain and statins are its heroic cure. Today, over 200 million people take statins globally, making it one of the most commercially successful drugs in the history of medicine.
But statins are an insidious scam. They poison your body, degrade your mind, and cause a cascade of health problems while delivering zero real benefit. The narrative we’ve been told about fat and cholesterol? Entirely false. Cholesterol is essential, not harmful.
And the doctors prescribing these drugs?
They’re either clueless or corrupt, acting as hired guns for the pharmaceutical industry.
Following a statin prescription from a doctor is like following financial advice from a loan shark.
The statin-cholesterol paradigm is a gigantic, diabolical fraud.
Behind the curtain is one of the most profitable enterprises in human history: a vertically integrated system built on eternal “risk management.” In practice, that means: lie to you, trick you into harmful treatments, create new medical problems, sell more interventions, and drain your bank account—until you die early, mind and body degraded.
From blood tests and “preventative” pills to low-fat snack aisles and seed oils, fear of cholesterol drives a multi-trillion-dollar industry. Do you think it will ever tell the truth if doing so threatens the cash cow?
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The food industry and medical system have formed a deadly alliance, profiting off your suffering while poisoning you. The cholesterol myth and statin scam are just a couple of chapters in a long history of fraud.
After World War II, ultra-processed foods surged in popularity. For the first time in history at such a massive scale, people started eating highly processed foods instead of whole, minimally processed ones. This was no accident. Processed foods are much more profitable. They turn cheap commodities into branded, shelf-stable, high-markup products with extended shelf life and massive scale advantages.
As heart disease emerged as an epidemic in the mid-20th century, the food industry needed a scapegoat. They couldn’t point the finger at the ultra-processed junk they were making. So, they turned to cholesterol. Enter Ancel Keys.
In the late 1950s, Ancel Keys conducted the Seven Countries Study, which became one of the most influential pieces of propaganda in the cholesterol myth. His research selectively cherry-picked countries that supported his hypothesis that fat was the cause of heart disease. Meanwhile, he ignored countries that didn’t fit the narrative, and ignored competing hypotheses, including sugar.
By the late 1940s, the American Heart Association (AHA)’s rise coincided with funding linked to Procter & Gamble—a company whose major products included the hydrogenated vegetable oil Crisco. Soon after, the AHA promoted dietary advice favoring vegetable oils and discouraging saturated fat, adopting Keys’ theory while other factors—like ultra-processed foods—were swept under the rug. The result was a widespread belief that dietary fat—especially saturated fat—raised cholesterol levels, which were assumed to cause heart disease.
Fast forward to the 1970s-80s: government dietary guidelines were solidified, pushing a low-fat, high-carb agenda. The result? A massive rise in obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
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Then in 1987, statins hit the market as prescription drugs, and the marketing blitz began. Cholesterol was cemented as the ultimate dietary villain in the public mind, and by continuously lowering the “recommended” levels of cholesterol, statin prescriptions skyrocketed. The statin market was born. And it continues to grow, with billions in revenue year after year.
Through all of this, voices warning against this system were ignored, drowned out, or outright censored by powerful commercial interests. The Atkins Diet, which went against Keys’ low-fat, high-carb dogma, was widely demonized in the media. Those who spoke out against the cholesterol myth were silenced, while the narrative continued to thrive.
Despite what you’ve heard in the media, cholesterol is not harmful—it’s essential. Your body manufactures it deliberately. About 75% of the cholesterol in your body is made by your own system.
Cholesterol levels fluctuate based on many factors—they vary seasonally, typically being lower in the summer and higher in the winter. Stress, diet, exercise, and even the weather can all influence cholesterol levels, meaning it’s not a simple, static figure.
Cholesterol is crucial for brain function. While your brain makes up only around 2% of your body weight, it contains about 25% of your total cholesterol.
Do you really want to take a drug that actively reduces the cholesterol in your brain? Is it any wonder statin users experience cognitive issues—aptly referred to as “statin brain”?
For over fifty years, we’ve been conditioned to fear cholesterol—despite it being a vital substance our bodies literally can’t live without.
The original theory, popularized in the 1950s, blamed cholesterol as a whole. The claim was that eating saturated fat—primarily from foods like red meat, butter, eggs, and full-fat dairy—raised blood cholesterol, which in turn caused heart disease.
When this story failed to hold up under scrutiny, the goalposts were moved. Total cholesterol quietly faded from focus. Cholesterol was split into two different types: “good” (HDL) and “bad” (LDL), and LDL cholesterol alone was rebranded as the villain. From that point on, medical intervention targeted LDL cholesterol specifically—pushed ever lower with each new set of guidelines.
We’re told to imagine LDL cholesterol as greasy sludge clogging the pipes of our arteries, but human arteries aren’t kitchen drains, and cholesterol doesn’t behave like sludge. Fats in the body are transported in liquid form, carried by lipoproteins—more like courier trucks than clots blocking flow. And autopsy data show that most heart attacks occur at sites where blood flow was perfectly normal before the event.
There is no shortage of evidence undermining the broader cholesterol hypothesis—total cholesterol, ratios, triglycerides, and more. But today, the statin narrative hinges on the claim that high levels of LDL cholesterol cause heart disease.
If high LDL cholesterol were truly the cause of heart disease, patients with the highest LDL cholesterol would suffer the most events. They don’t.
What follows isn’t an exhaustive critique of cholesterol theory—it’s a focused debunking of the LDL cholesterol justification for statin use.
Hospital data: Up to 70% of patients admitted for heart attacks had “normal” LDL cholesterol levels.
Large registry analysis (late 2000s): Among nearly 140,000 hospitalized heart‑attack patients, the average LDL cholesterol was lower than in the general population.
Framingham Heart Study (begun 1948) and a BMJ Open review (2016): Older adults with higher LDL cholesterol had no increased risk of death, and in some analyses, even lower risk.
The Nurses’ Health Study (begun 1976): Tracking over 120,000 women for decades, researchers found that five lifestyle factors—smoking, inactivity, obesity, poor diet quality, and heavy drinking—explained almost all coronary events, none of which had anything to do with lowering LDL cholesterol.
Nomura cohort study (2002–2014): Older adults with higher LDL cholesterol had a significantly lower risk of death from any cause compared with those with lower LDL levels.
Across countries, higher average LDL cholesterol may coincide with lower rates of death from heart disease. Japan, France, and Iceland are notable examples: high LDL cholesterol, low heart disease. Conversely, some nations with lower average LDL—often those with more aggressive cholesterol-lowering policies—do not necessarily have lower rates of death from heart disease.
Minnesota Coronary Experiment (1968–1973): Participants who replaced saturated-fat-rich foods—such as butter, meat, and whole milk—with vegetable oils and margarine lowered their LDL cholesterol, yet heart-disease deaths did not fall. Those whose cholesterol dropped the most were actually more likely to die. The findings were suppressed for over a decade.
Lyon Diet Heart Study (1980s): Participants who followed a Mediterranean-style, whole-food diet—including olive oil, fish, and nuts—saw heart disease deaths drop by roughly 75%, even though LDL cholesterol barely changed. The results were so dramatic the study was ended early for ethical reasons: continuing the low-fat, cholesterol-lowering diet was considered too harmful.
The previous section showed that high LDL cholesterol does not cause heart disease. Statins are designed to lower your LDL cholesterol, but do they actually prevent heart attacks or extend your life? (Spoiler alert: no.)
Even if we take the industry’s own optimistic (and deceptive) numbers at face value, the benefits are virtually non-existent.
Researchers consistently found that lowering LDL cholesterol had no significant effect on total mortality. In some trials, more people actually died in the statin group.
People without heart disease: Fewer than 1 in 100 users avoid a non-fatal heart attack or stroke over five years, with no meaningful extension of life expectancy (on average, only a few days over several years of statin use).
People with existing heart disease: Taking a statin for five years prevents a non-fatal heart attack in roughly 1 in 40 patients and has a 1-in-83 chance of delaying death.
Older adults (≥75 years): Roughly 1 in 400 patients without existing heart disease taking statins over several years will avoid a first non‑fatal heart attack or stroke.
Average life extension: Statins postponed death by only a few days on average (about 3–4 days over 5 years of use).
Even these tiny numbers are massively inflated by the pharmaceutical industry through selective reporting and deceptive, industry-funded research. The reality: hundreds medicate, one might benefit, and the supposed benefit isn’t even due to the cholesterol-lowering properties of statins. Any improvement likely comes from mild anti-inflammatory or anti-clotting effects—benefits that can be achieved much more effectively and safely with diet, exercise, and lifestyle.
The minuscule (and illusory) benefits might be forgivable if statins weren’t extremely harmful, which they are.
Statins don’t just fail to extend your life—they destroy your quality of life.
With most medicines, negative side effects show up pretty quickly—for example, nausea, vomiting, rash, headache, or dizziness. Statins are different. Their side effects creep in gradually—months or years after starting. By then, the link is obscured, and patients are often told they’ve developed a new condition requiring another prescription.
Below are some of the side effects statins cause. Most are even acknowledged on the official package inserts, though severity and prevalence of these harms are drastically downplayed.
Muscle pain and weakness: officially labeled as “rare,” yet it’s the #1 reason people quit statins, with most stopping within two years of starting. Real-world surveys show it affects over 20% of users.
Persistent fatigue and low energy: commonly reported by 10–20% of users, even though clinical trials often dismiss it as “nonspecific.”
Increases risk of developing diabetes and weight gain: acknowledged on FDA labels but downplayed as “small”; occurs in about 1 in 10 long‑term users.
Cognitive problems: forgetfulness, brain fog, and memory lapses (aptly named “statin brain”) affect roughly 5–10% of users. Long-term statin use has been linked in some studies to increased risk of serious cognitive decline, including dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Hormonal disruption: low libido, erectile dysfunction, and reduced testosterone or estrogen levels; affects several percent of men and women on long-term statins, though rarely acknowledged in guidelines.
Liver strain and abnormal enzymes: acknowledged by mainstream medicine; occurs in 1–3% of users and can sometimes progress to serious liver damage.
Possible increase in long‑term cancer risk: not listed on labels, but independent studies in populations with very low cholesterol have reported associations with higher cancer incidence.
And that’s just what’s been reported. The true scope of statin harm is far greater.
Most side effects never make it into official records. Only 1–5% of adverse reactions are formally documented, meaning the real impact on patients’ health is dramatically underestimated. The reality is orders of magnitude worse.
They control the data, the publication rights, and the press releases. When a negative result threatens profits, it quietly disappears.
That isn’t science—it’s marketing with footnotes.
I’ve documented the broader corruption of medical journals and published research elsewhere. What follows are the tactics most relevant to how the pharmaceutical industry manufactures the illusion that statins are safe and effective.
Here’s how they do it.
Before a clinical trial even begins, researchers “pre-screen” participants. On paper, it sounds like routine housekeeping; in practice, it filters out anyone likely to report problems later.
Placebo run-in: Participants take a dummy pill for weeks. Those who report problems are removed. The result is a population more likely to tolerate the drug and less likely to complain, even about real harms.
Active-drug run-in: Participants take the actual statin for a few weeks before the trial officially starts. Anyone who develops muscle pain, fatigue, memory issues, or other statin side effects is quietly removed for “intolerance.”
By the time the trial officially begins, the population has been hand-picked to include only the most compliant and tolerant participants. Every person most at risk of harm has already been edited out. It’s an effective way to make a toxic drug look harmless.
One of the oldest tricks in the pharmaceutical playbook is the relative vs. absolute risk deception.
If a drug reduces heart-attack risk from 2% to 1%, the real-world benefit is 1 percentage point.
But that same result is advertised as a “50% reduction in risk.”
The math is technically correct—and profoundly misleading. When you delete the denominator, tiny effects suddenly look dramatic.
That single statistical maneuver turns a marginal difference into a media headline and justifies a lifetime prescription.
Patients end up sacrificing their health for a ratio that exists only on paper.
Doctors and researchers who question the statin narrative are branded “anti-science,” while industry-aligned voices receive front-page coverage.
Medical journals—typically financially dependent on pharmaceutical advertising and reprint sales—decide which studies are “not of sufficient public interest.”
The media then cites those same journals to label alternative analyses as “misinformation.”
The feedback loop is airtight: fund the research, filter the participants, spin the numbers, and suppress dissent.
Every step leads to the same outcome—a scientific record in which statins win, and the people harmed by them effectively disappear.
This was never an honest mistake.
The
flaws in the cholesterol hypothesis
have been known for decades.
The harms of statins have been
documented since the 1990s.
The role of ultra-processed, sugary foods in chronic disease has been obvious to anyone willing to look.
Yet the same institutions—medical journals, guideline committees, regulatory boards—continue to act as if none of this exists.
Why? Because too much money, status, and legal liability are tied to maintaining the illusion.
A cardiologist who challenges the guidelines risks losing grants, hospital privileges, and even their medical license—facing professional censure, legal threats, or career-ending retaliation. A journal that publishes inconvenient data risks losing the revenue from the pharmaceutical industry that keeps it afloat. So the narrative survives—not because it’s true, but because it’s enforced.
Despite overwhelming evidence of harm, cholesterol targets are continuously lowered. Statins are now promoted for lifelong use, for children, and even floated as candidates for mass medication. Many doctors go so far as to suggest adding statins to the water supply—a testament not to science, but to institutional momentum and groupthink.
Statins aren’t about health—they’re a profit engine.
A drug that fails to extend life, causes widespread harm, and still dominates global guidelines tells you everything about the system that protects it.
Doctors repeat the same talking points, but the narrative collapses when patients stop taking statins, clean up their diets, and feel better.
The statin story isn’t just about one drug. It’s a case study in modern medicine itself.
Replace “cholesterol” with almost any other manufactured health crisis and you’ll see the same machinery at work:
Exaggerated Fear, Captured Science, Compliant Media, and Silenced Dissent.
Bubble
Quotes!
It’s also conceptually squishy to equate “passive” investment with durable and reliable “price-insensitive” behavior. My impression is that all investors care about the long-term returns that they can expect from their investments.
It’s just that long periods of market advance inspire a dangerous confidence that valuations have nothing to do with long-term returns. Instead, they come to imagine that long-term return prospects are always positive, and therefore that any price is a good price.
If market history is clear on one point, it’s that this confidence can ultimately change on a dime.
John Hussman Ph.D of The Hussman Funds
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Strictly speaking, there can be no such thing as an ‘investment issue’ in the absolute sense, i.e., implying that it remains an investment regardless of price. The ‘new era’ doctrine – that ‘good’ stocks were sound investments regardless of how high the price paid for them – was only a means of rationalizing under the title of ‘investment’ the well-nigh universal capitulation to the gambling fever.
The notion that the desirability of a common stock was entirely independent of its price seems incredibly absurd. Yet the new-era theory led directly to this thesis… An alluring corollary of this principle was that making money in the stock market was now the easiest thing in the world. It was only necessary to buy ‘good’ stocks, regardless of price, and then to let nature take her upward course. The results of such a doctrine could not fail to be tragic.
– Benjamin Graham & David L. Dodd, Security Analysis, 1934
Interest
Rate
Secular
Movement
Next 10 to 20 Years is for Higher Rates!
DYI: Interest rates over the next one to even
possibly two decades will be on balance ever increasing. The movement with increasing highs and most
importantly during recessions ever higher lows.
This is caused by our well know extreme Debt to GDP ratio with neither political
party willing to address their massive spending (Forcing the Federal Reserve to
monetize the debt causing inflation).
With an impending possible recession on the horizon interest rates could
possibly fall. However I would find it very doubtful – using the
10 year Treasury bond as bell weather – to break below its 0.52% yield set in
August 4, 2020. Breaking below 2% would
require massive money printing by the Federal Reserve setting off inflation
well into the teens (possibly higher).
The Feds are trapped they will do money printing during the next recession but will not go to bazooka size. They will have to let the stock market fall to the shock of the top 30% (and especially the top 10%).
--As the stock market becomes more expensive, a conservative investor's stock allocation should go down. The rationale recognizes the reduced expected future returns for stocks, and the increasing risk.
--The formula acknowledges the increased likelihood of the market falling from current levels based on historical valuation levels and regression to the mean, rather than from volatility. Many agree this is the key to value investing.
