Notes from the edge of civilization: March 2, 2025
The emerging war at the southern border; billionaires don't want Trump's Gold Card; and the technocrats are coming to the White House this week.
If you thought a few extra troops at the border would scare off the cartels, think again. YouTuber Cash Jordan sums up the southern border situation well, breaking down news reports on the US’s heavy-handed crackdown at the southern border — special forces, drones, surveillance planes, the works. How are the cartels taking it? Just as you’d expect — not that well.
This US clampdown is costing these “entrepreneurs” billions in lost revenue, so they’re hitting back hard — smuggling tunnels, drones, even IEDs. Just this month, 74-year-old rancher Antonio Céspedes Saldierna was killed near Brownsville, Texas, when his vehicle struck a suspected cartel-planted explosive. His family, including a son who served overseas, calls it terrorism, plain and simple. Hard to argue when IEDs — straight out of a battlefield playbook — show up on a quiet Texas border ranch.
Journalists covering the border are now told to wear armor, while border agents are beefing up their own gear. The feds are also cleaning house, busting corrupt officers and ramping up deportations. Mexico’s pitching in too, extraditing some big-name narcos to the US.
The cartels could bide their time or they could double down on violence to keep the profits flowing. Which way they go is the billion-dollar question. For now, with infiltration in our cities, drones dropping bombs, and ranchers dying in roadside explosions, the southern border feels less like a crossing and more like a warzone. Stay sharp.
Of all the boneheaded ideas 2025 has dished out (and there have been a few), last week’s brainchild from President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sort of takes the cake: a Trump “Gold Card,” offering US citizenship to investors for a cool $5 million.
Investor visas are nothing new — countries have been dangling residency or citizenship carrots to attract wealthy foreigners for decades. What sets Trump’s “Gold Card” apart is the eye-watering price tag. The existing EB-5 visa, which this is slated to replace, asks for $800,000 to $1.05 million tied to job creation.
So, let’s say you’re a newly-minted multimillionaire in India. What does $5 million get you that those cheaper options don’t? Let’s break it down:
Permanent US residency and a path to citizenship, with no job-creation strings attached like the EB-5. You’re not investing in a business or a real estate project — you’re essentially buying a VIP pass to America, with the money reportedly going straight to the government. Trump has pitched it as a revenue generator, while critics see it as a gilded fire sale of sovereignty, trading citizenship for cash without economic trickle-down.
Visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to over 180 countries, compared to an Indian passport’s roughly 60. That’s a massive upgrade but at $5 million, you’re paying a premium far beyond what other “golden visa” nations charge for similar mobility.
Trump has hinted Gold Card holders “won’t have to pay any tax on income outside of the United States,” a break not even US citizens get. If that gets approved by Congress, it’s a potential siren call for ultra-wealthy foreigners with global earnings — and a loophole that makes the $5 million a bargain for the right billionaire.
The real kicker is the citizenship path, rare among investor programs — most offer residency, not passports. But at this price, the pool shrinks to the ultra-elite, and skepticism abounds. Forbes polled billionaires, most of whom shrugged it off, citing high US taxes or cheaper alternatives. Experts peg realistic demand in the thousands, not millions — hardly the debt-busting windfall Lutnick and Trump are promising.
The nuance here is the tension: it’s a bold pivot from Trump’s border-hawk image, yet it’s less about economic innovation and more about cashing in on America’s brand. Trump’s not wrong that it’s “sophisticated” — it’s a slick grift dressed as policy. Whether it’s genius or a boneheaded sellout depends on who’s buying and what’s left of the “American experiment” when they’re done.
Technocracy will be on full display this week at the White House’s first Crypto Summit, which will take place on March 7. David Sacks, as the White House AI and Crypto Czar, will take center stage and is poised to steer discussions toward a tech-forward vision for digital assets — potentially unveiling a regulatory framework that prioritizes innovation over conventional oversight, or even advancing the idea of a national crypto reserve.
With industry titans and the President’s Working Group on Digital Assets in attendance, the summit could solidify Sacks’ role as a technocratic architect, blending Silicon Valley’s disruptive ethos with national policy to reshape America’s economic and technological future.
Sacks’ push for cryptocurrency and AI aligns with technocracy’s "exit" strategies — creating parallel systems outside traditional control. Crypto, with its decentralized ethos, and AI, with its potential for automated governance, are tools technocrats will likely wield to reduce reliance on human bureaucracies. (We’re kinda seeing it unfold right now, in fact.)
We will dive deeper into these technocratic ambitions and the “Paypal mafia” behind the push in an upcoming interview with
, author of Technocracy News. Stay tuned! It’s gonna be a good one.
The "Gold Card" might be a bigger draw as things deteriorate more abroad. Especially when you have the equivalent of the "Reign of Terror" going on in many of these countries that throw off the previous oligarchs who have been running the show, an extra three million is a cheap price to pay if you have that kind of wealth. We are talking about the people that would be paying for $10M-$20M homes. It is just a minor surcharge.
The exodus that has been going on with the mass immigration is a pressure relief valve.
Will it be a huge cash cow for the government? Not that likely. I would be surprised if they sold more than 100 of them in any given year.
There is also the obvious question of if we want the kind of people fleeing reprisal in their home country.
Is that the Texas rancher that drove over the IED while on a ranch in the U. S. or in Mexico?
Clarification please.