Your Mortgage Is Now Competing With Google and the Pentagon
Your Mortgage Is Now Competing With Google and the Pentagon
Notes From the Field by James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) September 1, 2026
Hardly a week goes by without another data center announcement, and the projects have gotten so big that they're now measured in gigawatts.
A gigawatt is a billion watts of electricity. Running around the clock, one gigawatt is enough to supply about 800,000 average American homes— and a single large data center is now built at that scale.
Breaking Down $15 billion Spent on California's Train to Nowhere
Breaking Down $15 billion Spent on California's Train to Nowhere
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) August 28, 2026
In November 2008, California voters approved a ballot measure to build a bullet train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It was supposed to be fast enough to make the journey in under three hours. And passengers could hop on by 2020, for a total cost of $33 billion.
Eighteen years later, there is nothing to ride.
The Whole World Is Stockpiling Like It's 1939
The Whole World Is Stockpiling Like It's 1939
Notes From the Field ByJames Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man August 24, 2026
On June 7, 1939, US President Franklin Roosevelt signed a new law authorizing $100 million (a lot of money back then) to buy rubber, tin, tungsten, etc., and put it all in storage.
The United States was still at peace at the time. World War II had not yet broken out, and global trade was still relatively seamless.
Shattering the Myth That Higher Taxes Can Fix the $40 Trillion National Debt
Shattering the Myth That Higher Taxes Can Fix the $40 Trillion National Debt
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) August 20, 2026
In June of 1944, American soldiers were storming the beaches of Normandy, single-handedly leading the fight to defeat the Nazis.
Back home, Americans gave everything they had. Some 85 million bought war bonds. The top income tax rate hit 94%, the highest in US history. Even ordinary people paid more and more income tax to support the war effort.
How Medicare Became a Slush Fund
How Medicare Became a Slush Fund
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) August 18, 2026
Four years ago this month, Washington passed a law and named it, with a straight face, the Inflation Reduction Act. Bizarrely, their plan to ‘reduce inflation’, which had been caused by excessive government spending, was for the government to spend even more money. It’s genius!
Even America's Enemies Trusted It With Their Money. That's Over
Even America's Enemies Trusted It With Their Money. That's Over
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) August 12, 2026
At 4:15 in the morning on November 4, 1956, Soviet artillery opened fire on the city of Budapest. And the subsequent firestorm was nothing short of devastating.
Two weeks earlier, students and factory workers had risen up against the Soviet-installed puppet government in Hungary. They pulled down Stalin's statue, rampaged across the city, and even managed to push Soviet forces out of Budapest.
The Tax Collector Now Gets a Cut of What He Finds
The Tax Collector Now Gets a Cut of What He Finds
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) August 11, 2026
Arguably the most famous man on the planet throughout the 1700s was the famed writer Francois-Marie Arouet, known to history as Voltaire. He wasn't just a celebrity writer and philosopher, however; Voltaire was also a wealthy capitalist and nobleman who almost single-handedly turned the impoverished region of Ferney into a highly productive watchmaking hub.
Central Banks Choose Between Gold and Dollars. Gold Is Winning
Central Banks Choose Between Gold and Dollars. Gold Is Winning
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) August 10, 2026
Every country on earth keeps a rainy-day fund: a pile of emergency savings, managed by its central bank, set aside for wars, crises, and currency runs.
These stockpiles of cash around the world are known as a nation’s “reserves”, and the people who manage those funds are called reserve managers.
The Biggest Winners Of This War Don't Pump A Single Barrel
The Biggest Winners Of This War Don't Pump A Single Barrel
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) July 28, 2026
How much do you think it would cost to send a supertanker, one of the giant ships that move the world's crude oil, through a narrow stretch of water that is full of mines, where missiles hit two tankers in early July, and where a crew member has already been killed?
Last month, one shipowner agreed to make that run— through the Strait of Hormuz— for nearly $470,000 per day.
Why They Won't Even Fix the Easy Stuff
Why They Won't Even Fix the Easy Stuff
Notes From the Fied By (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) July 27, 2026
The Department of Transportation's headquarters campus in Washington spans two complexes covering 1.8 million square feet across 11-acre of prime DC real estate. In the private sector, such a trophy office property would fetch north of $1 billion per year in rental income.
Yet for the federal government, two-thirds of the space sits empty according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the federal government's own internal watchdog. This is based on real data; the GAO toured the department's buildings last fall and counted the empty desks.
US Taxpayers Subsidized The Greatest Heist Of The Cold War The Grocery Bill Came Later
US Taxpayers Subsidized The Greatest Heist Of The Cold War. The Grocery Bill Came Later.
Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black / Sovereign Man) July 23, 2026
In the summer of 1972, a Soviet official named Nikolai Belousov stepped off a plane in New York City with a shopping list.
The Soviet Union had just finished its worst harvest in over a decade and was on the verge of starvation... and Belousov was tasked with the nearly impossible mission of buying enough wheat to feed an entire nation.