Doug Casey on Corporate Cowardice, Government Surveillance, and the Creeping Fascism

Matt Smith: Doug, I’ve failed to keep up with the constant firehose of news—or more accurately, disinformation and noise—so I don’t have a long list today. But I know there were a few things that caught your attention.

Doug Casey: Well, it’s not that I’ve researched them. They are things that I’ve absorbed almost by osmosis. News items float like a layer of scum on the cesspool of media. However, a couple of things have risen to the top and were drawn to my attention.

Number one, there’s a very cute actress named Sydney Sweeney —blonde, blue-eyed, shapely. She was contracted by American Eagle to model their denim. She was featured in ads emphasizing her assets. The copy was, “Our jeans are good genes”, a pun on jeans as in blue jeans and genes as in genetic makeup.

The interesting thing is that it caused the stock of the company—American Eagle—to go from $10 to $12 overnight. It became a meme stock because of the ads that it ran.

It was a relief, finally, to see a good-looking white girl peddling jeans. I thought they’d been banned.

Matt Smith: Reminded me of something straight out of the 1990s.

Doug Casey: It was great. Now, you’d think any corporate management with half a brain would say, “Wait a minute, the market likes this approach. It helped our stock price, and maybe people will actually buy our jeans because they want to look like Sydney Sweeney.”

But no. What did they do? Defying logic, they pulled the ad because the usual suspects—leftists, Wokesters, and other psychological criminals—started howling, “Oh, this is racist, sexist, Nazi-adjacent, blah, blah, blah.” And they pulled the ad.

Lau Vegys, who writes Crisis Investing for us, did a very nice article about this (LINK).

It turns out that when DEI was popular a few years ago, the gutless corporate whores at American Eagle ran an ad featuring a morbidly obese black woman who looked like a whale, a rhino, or a hippo got stuffed into a pair of their jeans.

I mean, what’s the matter with these people? Who wants to emulate somebody that physically degraded?

I despise corporate America for all kinds of reasons—but not least because they’re stupid and self-destructive.

Matt Smith: And completely spineless.

They found something that worked—it literally added 20% to the company’s market cap overnight—and they still caved. The stock’s now come down a bit from the peak. It’s still above where it started, but it’s drifting back down… around $11.25 last I looked.

Doug Casey: I think the stock is headed way down, because the market will realize that these people are stupid, dishonest, weak—and cowardly.

Matt Smith: You’d think profit motive would eventually kick in, but most of these executives are comfortable. They’re raking in big salaries, sitting on boards, collecting stock options. They’re not trying to win—they’re trying not to lose. No guts, no conviction.

Doug Casey: I think the managements of almost all corporations are like that. Other than founding entrepreneurs, who are in a different breed of cat, the people who rise to the top climb the corporate ladder by backslapping and backstabbing, not by being productive and creative.

Matt Smith: Their goal is to avoid mistakes, which means avoiding risk, which means avoiding value creation. The whole system rewards mediocrity.

Doug Casey: They’re basically bureaucrats. The people running large corporations could just as easily work for the government. We have a revolving door between big corporations and the government. They’re the same damn people.

It makes sense on every level. Government drones, corporate ladder-climbers—the same people.

Matt Smith: And we’re watching that convergence accelerate. The corporate state is merging with the actual state. It’s not theoretical anymore—it’s just happening.

Doug Casey: It’s further reason to believe that we’re watching the continuing collapse of Western civilization.

Matt Smith: Sure looks that way. But it was still refreshing—briefly—to see something authentic sneak through.

Doug Casey: An ad featuring a healthy, good-looking girl who— unbelievably—was white with blue eyes on top of it all. Oh, can’t have that. Better strike that.

Matt Smith: Hopefully she’s not straight. That would really be the final straw—white, blonde, and straight.

Doug Casey: I’ll conjecture that she’s straight because there’s no hint of purple hair, hostility, or craziness about her in those pictures.

Matt Smith: Another thing I know was on your radar: the “success” of the tariffs. Lutnick’s saying they’re pulling in $700 billion a year if you annualize it.

Doug Casey: And he’s presenting this as a good thing. But it’s not. If he’s right, these tariffs will bring in $700 billion a year to the enemy, the State. But I don’t think he’ll be nearly as right as he thinks. The tariffs will severely reduce economic activity and prosperity. Giving the State more power, more assets—which have been extracted from the American people—is destructive.

He’s selling that as a good thing, but it’s just making the State bigger. From an ethical and philosophical point of view, Lutnick is a moron.

And then Trump wants to spend that extra money like a drunk sailor. Trump, from the goodness of his heart, wants to give away $600 to every American. It makes him look like a hero.

What’s happening is that the government takes away from some people and gives back to other people. So, who’s your daddy? The State. It’s insane, and completely backwards.

Look, Trump has done some good things. Unlike that abysmal schlemiel Biden, he’s at least talking to Putin. That’s great. If you want to avoid a nuclear war, it really helps to talk to your adversary—which the previous administration wasn’t doing. We should appreciate that on Trump’s part.

And the fact that he’s anti-woke is great. And the fact that he wants to massively deregulate—although DOGE has mostly gone away—is great. Trump has done some good things.

But on the other hand, he really is a narcissist, an egomaniac, and a megalomaniac. That makes him dangerous.

Matt Smith: And at the end of the day, he’s a statist. Sure, he wants to remake the State, but he still wants it to be powerful—and his. The $600 is just bread for the plebs. The circus is implied.

Doug Casey: That’s right. He believes whatever he does is righteous and good. He thinks he can do no wrong. That’s a dangerous attitude for the most powerful person in the world, and I think his attitude will become ever more dictatorial.

Matt Smith: Yeah, and the so-called trade deal with Europe is a perfect example. Americans are patting themselves on the back over it, saying, “We just crushed the EU.” Zero tariffs for our stuff going there, 15% on theirs. LNG exports doubling, billions more in defense sales, and $600 billion in foreign direct investment into the U.S., including moving pharma production here.

What does Europe get in return? Americans act like, “Who cares? We showed them who’s boss.”

Doug Casey: The deal doesn’t appear to make sense. What’s in it for Europe?

Matt Smith: If you connect the dots, I think the answer is fear. Scott Bessent laid it out early—this administration is using a whole-of-government approach. Military, diplomacy, trade—all aligned.

This isn’t just about selling goods. The trade agreement is clearly entangled with military commitments.

And not coincidentally, right after that deal, Trump’s deadline for Putin shifts from 50 days to 10 or 12.

So these European leaders—they’re afraid. I don’t know if you watched that interview with Tucker and that Bild reporter?

Doug Casey: I did. What a weak little Euroweenie he was.

Matt Smith: Right. But, this is a reporter who rubs shoulders with the establishment. The fear of Putin, for them, is real. Crazy, but real. So what does Europe get from the deal? U.S. protection. I think they get what they need most—which is American support against Russia.

Doug Casey: They’re like scared little kids. It’s that CIA boogeyman under the bed.

But the fact is that Putin impresses me as the most reasonable, the most rational, and the most thoughtful of all the European leaders. Russia is not going to invade Europe for all kinds of reasons. It would serve no useful purpose. It would be extremely expensive and counterproductive. Putin sees that. He’s keeping cool even though he’s being massively provoked.

These Europeans are basically—they’re psychos, frankly. And Trump is egging them on. I mean, it’s wonderful that European countries were spending only 2% of their GDP on weapons. Now, they’re ramping it up to 5%, to buy a shitload of weapons—with borrowed money. And what do you do when you have all those weapons? You wind up using them.

And the same is true of Japan, which is only spending about 1.5% of its GDP on weapons. But the U.S. and Trump are pushing them to spend 5%.

Matt Smith: Yeah, and they signed on to the same 15% tariff deal.

Doug Casey: So what’s going on? Is the U.S. looking to fight and “win” a global thermonuclear war against both Russia and China?

Matt Smith: It sure looks like military cooperation is baked into these trade deals. The same European leaders who trashed Trump earlier are now falling in line. My guess is, in return, there were some promises made about what would happen with Ukraine that they were happy with.

Doug Casey: The Europeans are encouraging his naturally narcissistic tendencies. None of this is good.

And the question is: What are the Russians going to do in the face of all this? The West is idiotically backing the Russians into a corner. And if you back even a mouse—forget about a bear—into a corner, it will fight.

Matt Smith: Eventually, yeah.

But the surprising part is—wouldn’t we have expected that response already?

I mean, even Biden drew supposed red lines: “If we send Abrams tanks, that’s too far.” Then, “If we send F-16s, that’s too far.” And here we are—we’ve blown through all those red lines.

There have even been direct attempts on Putin’s life—allegedly—via drone strikes. But Putin still hasn’t escalated. Officially, it’s still a “special military operation.” He’s refusing to call it war.

Doug Casey: Well, I don’t mean to sound like a Putin fan. What I’m saying is that leaders of great states almost must be criminal personalities. But of all the people out there, Putin is the most prudent and the most rational. I’m sure he sees what’s going on, and does not want to start World War 3. Unlike the NATO people.

Matt Smith: He absolutely doesn’t.

And that restraint is being used against him.

I wrote an article recently that International Man will re-run on Monday. It’s about DARPA and one of their lesser-known programs—”Theory of Mind.” It’s a concept centered around understanding how your adversary thinks, modeling their decision-making, and shaping it.

They use AI, mass surveillance, data profiling—on not just the adversary but their entire circle of influence—to create predictive models. And then they apply strategies designed to provoke certain responses without triggering escalation.

Ukraine’s a great example. Even when Ukraine briefly invaded Russian territory, it didn’t cross a line that caused a dramatic Russian counter. That’s Theory of Mind at work.

Palantir—spun out of DARPA—has been the tip of the spear in implementing this. It was originally created to do things the U.S. government couldn’t legally do. So they had a private company do it instead.

And it’s public knowledge that Palantir’s been directly involved in targeting decisions in Gaza by the IDF. We know for sure the U.S. has used it in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen—all within the last year.

So this tech is out there being used in the field right now. And think about how weird all the conflicts have been—how lines have been pushed so far, but they haven’t escalated. This is what Theory of Mind was all about.

In fact, I would say—to give you an idea of what it does to an adversary—Palantir was a key vendor during COVID, allegedly just providing real-time feedback on the population.

During COVID, the general public—not just in the U.S. but everywhere—was the adversary. So with these systems everything is gamed out—where can they push, where do they have to stop pushing, what messaging needs to go out from the leaders, what messaging should be on social media.

In real-time, it gives them information on how the situation should be managed.

From my perspective during COVID, as an American living in America at the time, I felt like the population was under attack. But the way these tools work is that they create real confusion among what they label as adversaries—in this case, all of us—that you’re not sure if you’re being attacked, and if you are being attacked, who exactly is attacking you.

It creates this confusion in the mind of the adversary and even helps shape the adversary’s thoughts through officials’ statements, the press, and social media.

I think this Theory of Mind type warfare has been driving everything we’ve seen since 2020.

Doug Casey: It makes perfectly good sense because it all comes down to psychology. Sun Tzu, in the fifth century BC, said war is all about psychology—understanding how your enemy thinks and knowing yourself.

Yes, you’re quite correct. And there must be many, many reasons why these gigantic data centers are accumulating unbelievable amounts of disparate information, sorting it out, and then putting it together to predict what the average person might be thinking and how he’s reacting.

Matt Smith: Right. And under Trump, Palantir’s footprint has exploded.

The DoD has doubled its contract with Palantir. ICE has signed a deal with Palantir. DHS, the Social Security Administration, the IRS, and the Department of Transportation have all signed contracts with Palantir.

Take all that government data and combine it with commercial data—the scope of data they’re ingesting now is beyond belief. Not just your emails and phone calls, your bank transactions, and online history. Every location you’ve ever been with your phone is available for purchase commercially. That’s not a conspiracy theory—that’s a fact.

All of the data gets fed into building digital twins of us—simulations of how each individual behaves. And then they simulate against those avatars in their AI systems and implement actions against the adversary directly or indirectly to shape their perceptions.

To DARPA, we’re all adversaries by default—until proven otherwise.

Doug Casey: Oh, it’s actually worse than that. Because the people who control Palantir have not only made billions and billions of dollars on Palantir stock, but they have lots and lots of ways to become even richer by using all this information as insiders. Not necessarily insider trading, but just by having information on everybody and everything. It’s rather dystopian.

Matt Smith: Exactly. Here’s a small example—hard for us to know who did it, but you can see the trades. Trump announces a new tariff—this time on copper. Two or three minutes before he says anything publicly, someone makes a massive trade and walks away with a fortune.

That’s not an accident.

And, look, I said earlier this year that the Biden administration felt like it was looting and pillaging on the way out—which they were. But now it looks like Trump’s people are doing it too—just in a different way.

They’re front-running trade announcements, launching meme coins, starting investment funds, and gaming the system via private market mechanisms.

Different methods, same outcome—plunder.

Doug Casey: Well, fear not, because Trump is planning to distribute $600 to everybody. It’s nice to toss a few pennies to the plebs.

Matt Smith: And the people will say thank you.

Doug Casey: Oh, yes, and it’s absolutely perverse. As a laissez-faire capitalist I’ve never believed that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. That only happens in heavily state-directed systems. But that’s exactly what we’ve got now.

The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer because we don’t live in a capitalist system. As I’ve explained in the past, we live in a fascist system—a word which is totally misunderstood and misused.

Listen, I thought we were going to end our conversation today on a happy note, because I always like to look at the bright side.

Matt Smith: Well, the sun’s out. It’s winter here in South America, but it’s still a beautiful day.

I don’t follow sports, so I’ve got no cheerful sports story to share.

Doug Casey: Pro athletes are just hired gladiators anyway—for whatever city or team that pays them

Matt Smith: But there is some good news: our book is finished—at least the writing. It’s in typesetting now and heading to print soon. We’re just weeks away.

I think it’s going to be a book like no one’s ever held before—both for the content and how it’s put together. It’s meant to be useful, but also, we’re trying to make it beautiful.

Doug Casey: I don’t know if I like that word “beautiful.” Trump uses it way too much. He’s degraded the word.

Nonetheless, it’ll be a big, beautiful book.

Matt Smith: It is a Big, Beautiful Book, actually. But, I’m not letting them ruin our language. Screw them!

Doug Casey: That’s right.

Matt Smith: All right, Doug—we’ll leave it there for today.

Doug Casey: Thanks, Matt.

Editor’s Note: As Doug and Matt lay bare in this conversation, we are living through an era where cowardice masquerades as leadership, propaganda substitutes for truth, and centralized power tightens its grip by the day. From corporate self-sabotage to digital surveillance networks indistinguishable from sci-fi dystopias, it’s clear: the system is not just broken—it’s being weaponized against us.

But in every crisis, there’s opportunity—for those who are prepared.

Doug Casey has spent decades not just warning about these trends, but showing how to profit from them. That’s the core mission of Crisis Investing—to help independent thinkers like you survive and thrive as the old order crumbles.

If you see what’s coming and want to take control of your financial future while building real resilience…

Click here to join Doug Casey’s Crisis Investing now and take your first step toward turning breakdown into breakthrough.

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