This blog runs on reader subscriptions and donations. Reading it is free, and always will be, but it does take money to run the site and keep myself fed and sheltered. Every year (except one time when I was sick and forgot) I do an annual fundraiser, and the funds raised are the make the blog viable.

Over the last few years I’ve been writing mostly about the hegemonic changeover from America to China. Long predicted, this is still a rare event, happening only every century or so, and it’s fascinating to be living thru it. I still plan on covering it, but I think regular readers get the point.

What I plan on writing more about is what the future looks like, and what it takes to run a “good” society. We don’t have a lot of those right now, and putting down the markers for what is required to create one is important. Equally, we need to understand how good societies fail. As an example FDR created a much better America for Americans, but he left open some “windows of wealth” like taxing capital gains at much less than income. It took a while for the rich to turn into oligarchs by driving a tank thru this opening, but they managed it.

China before Xi was in vast danger of turning into an oligarchy. Corruption was rampant, and China was minting billionaires, and they were using their wealth to buy influence and power. Xi shut that down, hard. China avoided a trap which would have turned its rise, at best, into a Chinese Gilded Age and might well have derailed it entirely.

Many such traps come along, and sometimes countries recover before the harm is insoluble.

Sometimes they don’t.

So I’ll be writing more about such issues, about the future effects of climate change on governance and general life and so on.

We have two new writers, Sean-Paul Kelley and Nat Wilson Turner. They cover issues I only touch on, Sean-Paul is a trained historian who has visited more countries than not, and Nate is good at the “bloggy” stuff, as well as (though he hasn’t written about it yet for us) the principles of ideology and how it determines history.

We’ll also make some serious predictions. Most of the big picture events I predicted over the last twenty years have either come to pass, or are in process now, like the rise of China, the fall of America, the immiseration of Americans, the rise of authoritarianism, undeniable climate change, the fall of Crimea, the 2008 financial collapse and so on. We’re due for another financial collapse, and I’ll discuss why, how it will most likely play out, why it’ll be the last one which can be “papered over” and put it in the context of the US’s demotion to regional great power.

In terms of fundraising goals, for every two thousand dollars we raised, I’ll write a long article on one of the “Laws of Heaven”, the principles which create and sustain good societies, in Machiavelli style dictums.

One of these is the “Law of the Predator”.

Anyone who will take what they want from someone weaker than them cannot be allowed to have any power.

Rules such as these, and “keep the rich poor” are foundational. When we don’t follow them, usually without realizing we are, our societies inevitably rot and turn into something hellish for the majority of people.

Readership is up a fair bit this year, even after removing bots. People want to read what is written here. But to write, money is, alas, necessary. I hope you will subscribe or donate. The goal is $12,500, the same as last year. If you’re personally in financial trouble, if food or shelter is an issue, please don’t give. If not, and you value this blog, please do.

SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE TO IAN’S 2025 FUNDRAISER

(Afterword. If you had a subscription and think it’s still running, please check. When credit cards change, the subscription ends. I always let people know, but email messages don’t always get thru. If you can’t use paypal to donate, let me know. Snail mail still works or if you’re Canadian, an Interac transfer. (Most US cash apps do not work in Canada. You can reach me at admin-at-ianwelsh-dot-net, about this or anything else.)