Hayek distinguished between legislation (rules created by a sovereign backed by violence) and law (natural principles of just conduct discovered and applied by judges), establishing that international law exists as rules and principles governing interstate relations without requiring a global government for enforcement.
Natural law principles predate formal legislation, as C.S. Lewis documented in “The Abolition of Man” showing remarkable similarity across ancient legal codes on core issues like murder, theft, and incest, demonstrating universal principles independent of sovereign creation.
Common law judges discover, articulate, and apply existing societal rules rather than creating new ones, operating within a system of purpose-independent rules of just conduct that emerge through human choice, not design, similar to how language rules evolve.
Medieval law merchant governed trade among merchants from different countries through rapid repercussions like blacklisting for violations, enforcing norms without physical punishment across political boundaries or centralized sovereign authority.
Whaling communities developed efficient property rights through informal norms: slow-moving whales belonged to the first ship to attach them, while fast-moving whales belonged to the first harpooner with a marked harpoon, even if another ship brought it in, with captains abiding by rules for long-term economic interest despite short-term temptations since violating norms led to complete shunning and inability to sell goods.
Maritime law demonstrates polycentric law and decentralized enforcement functioning effectively across jurisdictions, proving legal systems can operate without centralized sovereign control.
Even in systems with a centralized sovereign, there exist de facto competing authorities and non-enforcement, as demonstrated by US states and cities ignoring federal drug laws, showing decentralization within supposedly unified legal frameworks.
Decentralized legal systems with competing authorities (like dictionary makers or English professors) can handle edge cases, deviations, and errors potentially better than centralized systems with few judges or legislators, as multiple interpreters provide checks and balances.
International law exists even without perfect enforcement; while powerful countries may violate it, smaller countries can still boycott, sanction, and pressure aggressors to comply, creating consequences without centralized enforcement authority.
Objective adjudication bodies trusted by the community are needed to establish facts in contentious situations like alleged war crimes, as political biases and doctored evidence can cloud perceptions in decentralized systems.
International organizations like the UN, with powerful nations’ representatives and vetoes, don’t discover natural law principles but legislate rules reflecting collective will, often proving ineffective, inefficient, or corrupt while lacking enforcement mechanisms, making the “rules-based international order” a fiction where Security Council members and allies like Israel act freely, vetoing condemnations and ignoring decisions.
The US dollar and Treasury bonds lost their status as sovereign reserve safe havens after the 2022 confiscation of Russian assets, triggering countries to accelerate gold acquisition as an alternative store of value.
Gold remains the only true safe haven over the long term because it is a real asset with no liability that cannot be confiscated, despite experiencing short-term volatility that investors must tolerate.
The world has entered an era of evaporating trust at both state and societal levels, requiring investors to focus on tangible assets with real use and function since trust takes significant time to rebuild.
Grant Williams’ 40-year veteran investment thesis centers on playing defense and preserving purchasing power through real assets like copper, oil, gold, and silver rather than taking risks on speculative investments or cryptocurrencies.
Williams considers oil and copper cheap at current prices and believes tangible commodities (copper, gold, silver, oil) represent the new “MAG7” for building long-lasting generational wealth.
Williams holds a significant but comfortable portion of gold and silver in his portfolio, which has been performing exactly as intended for his wealth preservation objectives.
The repo market and reverse repos serve as critical indicators of stress in the financial system, demonstrating that no true safe haven exists in current market conditions.
Certainty represents the biggest danger for investors right now—being certain about anything is potentially catastrophic, requiring investors to watch developments unfold while protecting investment goals amid heightened uncertainty.
Investors must understand themselves first by determining whether they are an investor or trader and identifying their risk tolerance before deciding what to invest in, who to listen to, and where to get information.
In a world driven by self-interest, investors should do their own homework and avoid blindly trusting so-called gurus, as understanding countries’ and actors’ self-interest makes their actions easier to predict and navigate.
The 1951 Treasury-Fed Accord, presented as establishing genuine Fed independence, involved no legal or meaningful behavioral change—the Fed continued funding wars and federal programs while simply rebranding itself as independent.
Public perception management has been the Fed’s primary focus for 100 years, with its carefully maintained image as an independent institution serving as a major source of its power to execute drastic expansions like the 1971 gold standard abandonment, Greenspan’s permanent financial sector support, and unprecedented responses to 2008 and 2020 recessions.
Central bankers fear Trump will expose the Fed as an already politicized institution warping the economy to benefit those close to power, not that he will politicize it—his lack of subtlety threatens to derail the carefully maintained public image that enables the Fed’s authority.
Trump’s takeover seeks to drop the pretense of a non-political Fed and accelerate crony inflationist monetary policy, which while bringing pain through awful inflationist status quo acceleration, could produce serious good by meaningfully derailing the lie of Fed independence.
In January 2026, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell accused Trump of weaponizing the Fed’s multi-billion dollar renovation project as leverage to pressure adoption of his preferred monetary policy, despite the indictment not alleging Powell mismanaged funds.
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