Thou shalt not say no to Donald Trump!

To say no to President Trump would be saying no to God – these are the words that Christian minister Paula White-Cain – the White House Senior Advisor and head of the White House Faith Office said in 2025. These words stirred much uproar among Christians of many denominations. They rightly stated that no man can be adored like God, no man can be looked up to like he is a deity.

The White House’s main resident – Donald Trump – a psychological reincarnation of Benito Mussolini – received a powerful boost for his ego from this female minister. Paula White-Cain is said to have been contacted by Donald Trump many years ago, before his first presidential term. He is supposed to have been struck by the profundity of her preaching. No wonder: like draws like. Paula White-Cain is every inch as narcissistic as the American president is. She was heard (and recorded) on an occasion to say: “Wherever I go, God rules. When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds. I have every right and authority to declare the White House holy ground, because I was standing there and where I stand is holy.” Her self-esteem is just staggering!

Paula White-Cain, born in 1966, a Christian minister, has been married three times (to Dean Knight, a musician, with whom she has a son; to Randy White, a preacher; and Jonathan Cain, a keyboardist and songwriter). She herself is from a broken family, with her father being a suicide. Despite those life hardships she managed to amass a fortune, complete with a real estate and a private jet. She generates money through her evangelism (including televangelism), book writing, and various business ventures.

Why, Donald Trump has also tried his hand at various enterprises and – what a coincidence! – he also has had three spouses (Ivana Trump, the mother of his three first children; Marla Maples, mother of one of his daughters; and Melania Trump, mother of his youngest son).

Paula White-Cain’s evangelism attracts thousands of followers. She makes believe she “speaks in tongues” and she delivers people from bad spirits causing the people to fall on the ground during the process and behave in uncontrolled ways. She acts self-assured and – you guessed it right – she does all those things for the good of the poor, including the poor in – yes! yes! – Africa. (You will have noticed, dear reader, that all the philanthropists of the world are somehow concerned with the Dark Continent, but never mind.)

Isn’t Paula White-Cain just the right person to accompany somebody like President Donald Trump? They both look for narcissistic supply of admiration from the masses of people, they both know how to ingratiate themselves with the common man, and they both have been extremely successful in enriching themselves and gaining social status.

One can wonder which is worse: a Leonid Brezhnev taking cues from Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx’s political-cum-philosophical tenets or Donald Trump being influenced by Paula White-Cain’s ministry and hr interpretation of the Holy Scripture. One can also legitimately wonder whether Leonid Brezhnev really cared about Marxism-Leninism, and, similarly, whether President Donald Trump really cares about religion, any religion. Rather, both leaders use(d) the ideology or religion for their self-aggrandizement. When Ivanka, Donald Trump’s daughter (from his first marriage) married Jared Kushner, she converted to Judaism, her husband’s religion, which shows that she was not raised by a genuinely Christian father.

President Donald Trump needs a bunch of ministers in the White House precisely for the purpose of raising his status in the eyes of still believing American Christians. The words said by Paula White-Cain that you cannot say no to Donald Trump because that would be like saying no to God himself turn the American president into a Caesar-like figure. We know that Roman emperors enjoyed the status of being divine. The United States is an echo of the Roman Empire: we have the senate and the senators, we have the Capital, we have the eagle as the national emblem (all the trappings derived from ancient Rome) and Latin inscriptions like the familiar e pluribus unum (out of many – one) seen on coins and paper bills.

Roman emperors were not deified within a day. It was a process. Are we witnessing something like that in the case of present-day America?

Christians, as said above, were enraged by what Paula White-Cain said about President Donald Trump, but some of them – and we think about Christian Zionists – had done the same long before they heard those words from the female minister. It is the Christian Zionists who notoriously deify the nation of Israel. They are used to saying that ‘who touches Israel touches God’, which is a loose quotation of Zechariah 2:8, which says: ‘For he who touches you touches the apple of His eye.’ It is then the Christian Zionists who have long ago equated one ethnicity with God himself. Why should they be bothered so much when the deification is extended to Donald Trump? After all the incumbent American president is Israel’s best friend, waging wars at the behest of Tel Aviv. If Donald Trump is doing his best to Make Israel Great Again, why deification should be withdrawn from him? Doesn’t he deserve it?

But jokes apart. Deification of a nation or an individual is a path into the abyss. History knows of such deifications and the results they entailed. Woe to the world in which a nation or a man is equated with God.

The most expensive race in history

For those who follow the financial markets even a little, it is no secret that the race in the field of artificial intelligence is currently being fought out among the largest technology companies. However, AI is not a free revolution. To develop ever more efficient models, Big Tech needs hundreds of billions of dollars for data centres, servers, chips, cooling and energy. It is astonishing, but according to an analysis by the IEA (International Energy Agency), data centres are expected to consume around half of the electricity produced in the US between 2025 and 2030.

This is beginning to be reflected in the cash flow of the major companies in the AI sector. The chart below shows the growing gap between the capital expenditure (CapEx) of the Big 4 – namely Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft – and their available cash (FCF – Free Cash Flow).

Capex of Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft (dark blue) vs. their free cash flow (red) in billions of dollars, including forecasts for the coming years.

From 2023 onwards, these companies’ expenditure will rise steadily and, according to analysts, will be six times higher by 2030 than it was eight years ago. 2026 will be the first real test of this strategy. It is predicted that surplus cash will virtually disappear and debt will rise. In a year’s time, we will find out whether it was a brilliant gamble – or the most expensive mistake in the history of technology.

Another risk for Big Tech is competition. Although tests clearly show that Chinese models still lag far behind the American market leaders, whilst the US remains the leader where scale and computing power matter, the technological advantage is not yet a market advantage – especially when the cheaper Chinese alternative is good enough for most business applications.

Would you like to be the American vice president?

The talks in Islamabad, Pakistan, have come to a grinding halt. 21 hours bore no fruit. Americans, despite having lost the war to Iran, raised their demands and obviously sought no settlement. It is highly likely they are trying to regroup and strike again: they are playing for time. They have done so twice before so we may rest assured they will do it again. They will strike while the negotiations are in full swing if they are resumed, and most likely they will be resumed.

Yet, it is not the negotiations that we’d like to focus aur attention on. It is the person of the American vice-president JD Vance. He was sent by President Donald Trump to Islamabad to carry out the talks. One might think JD Vance is the second most powerful man on planet earth. Sadly, far from it. JD Vance had absolutely no empowerment to conduct the negotiations. He called Donald Trump eleven times during his stay in Islamabad – a sure sign he had absolutely no leeway, or – worse – Donald Trump did not trust him enough.

Second, JD Vance was accompanied by Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law) and Steve Witkoff (both of Jewish extraction), who were certainly sent to guide the vice president and see to it that he does not depart from the direction that is satisfying for Israel.

Third, JD Vance, while still on board the plane bound for Washington on his way back from Pakistan called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ‘reported’ (that’s precisely the word that Benjamin Netanyahu used giving account of the call to the journalists) about the talks. Let this sink in: the American vice-president reported over the telephone to a foreign head of state even before he did so in person to his superior, the president of the United States.

The position of the American second-in-command is unenviable! For all the splendour and what not, JD Vance is compelled to play a role he certainly – if he is a man of ambition – does not enjoy playing. Unless, of course, JD Vance is not a man of ambition, unless he only cares for the trappings of power. Who knows?

How things are sold and packaged to us

Traditional economics assumes that people make decisions rationally and after careful consideration. In practice, however, Homo sapiens rarely resembles Homo economicus. We are not machines that coldly calculate profits and losses. We are beings who, despite millions of years of evolution, make decisions under the influence of emotions and unconscious impulses. Behavioural economists and experts in neuromarketing are aware of this and use it to sell us products and services.

Daniel Kahneman, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002, demonstrated together with Amos Tversky that people make decisions based on emotions and heuristics (mental shortcuts). These simplified rules of thought enable quick decisions, but ones that are usually inaccurate.

The first of these cognitive mechanisms is the anchor effect. This means that the first piece of information we are given – such as the price – becomes our benchmark. For example, if a shop reduces the price from 500 to 300, customers see this offer as a great opportunity, regardless of the product’s actual value.

The second cognitive mechanism is the availability heuristic (mere-exposure effect): we consider things to be more important or more likely if an example immediately springs to mind. Insurance companies exploit this by showing specific claims in their adverts, leading us to buy policies we may not even need.

The third is the certainty effect: people prefer a small but guaranteed profit to the chance of a large profit. A “free gift with every order” is often more appealing than competition.

The fourth is loss aversion: adverts such as “Offer ends in 2 hours” or “Only 24 left in stock” attract customers like a magnet. Loss aversion is also linked to the FOMO effect (fear of missing out). This causes market participants to make irrational decisions under the influence of social pressure and the fear of missing out on an opportunity (see, for example, recent buyers of precious metals on the stock market).

The fifth is cognitive ease: used in marketing through consistent branding and slogans. If a message is repeated often enough, it ‘slips’ into the brain without resistance. This builds trust, even when there are no factual arguments to back it up. This is combined with clear presentation (visual ease) and ease of content (simple language, humour).

The sixth is the effect of scarcity. When a well-known brand announces a limited-edition product, people often react with enthusiasm. They see it as something exclusive and rare that will enhance their status and self-esteem. Nobody asks whether the product is worth the price.

The seventh is framing – the construction of an appropriate narrative.

The eighth is the halo effect. We are more likely to believe attractive, well-dressed people than those who look average, unattractive or poor, even if this says nothing about their competence.

Modern neuromarketing has long since incorporated all these effects and is taking things further by utilising the latest discoveries in neurobiology, cognitive science, psychology, data science and artificial intelligence. It examines not only human behaviour, but also its biological basis.

Politicians make massive use of neuromarketing, and we fall for it. They simply talk (Trump’s cognitive ease). They show us gruesome images of destroyed Ukrainian cities and say: ‘The war may soon come to you if you don’t pay more tax for defence spending. You must buy and produce weapons immediately, otherwise it will be too late’ (FOMO).

Politicians want to keep pay rises in the public sector as low as possible, so they stir up the trade unions, who then demand a far-fetched 15% increase (the anchor). Both sides then agree on 5%, and the electorate (the customers) are happy (the certainty effect).

Politicians never talk about necessary tax increases, but rather about ‘investing in the future.’ Instead of talking about ‘restrictions on freedoms,’ they talk about ‘security measures.’ Statistics: Voters are more likely to support a programme that promises ‘95% employment’ than one that talks about ‘5% unemployment,’ even though mathematically it is the same thing. Both are examples of framing.

Olaf Scholz positioned himself as Angela Merkel’s successor (even copying her diamond-shaped hand gesture). He capitalised on the fact that voters’ brains favour what is familiar (the mere-exposure effect). For Germans, voting for Scholz was ‘cognitively easy’ – not a revolution, but stability that provided a sense of security.

Youthfulness, impeccable looks and energy created a strong halo effect for Macron and Trudeau. Voters unconsciously attributed economic and political competence to them (which, as newcomers, they could not prove) because they reacted positively to their overall presence and self-assured demeanour.

Brussels constantly relies on certainty and availability heuristics. Half-truths – such as the claim that the EU is beneficial for all member states – or outright lies – such as the assertion that we need ‘doctors’ from Somalia or ‘engineers’ from Rwanda – are repeated so often that, for some Europeans, these lies begin to feel like facts. It is claimed that leaving the EU is not worth it, as EU funding is so beneficial. Hardly anyone mentions that leaving could eradicate the demographically and economically devastating (green; LGBTQ) ideology. Hardly anyone mentions that leaving could enable Eastern and Central European countries to prevent the migration of their best skilled workers to Western Europe.

Just as in Brussels, the authorities in Beijing blow like the wind over the people, and the people (like grass) bend, as the sage Confucius once said. They operate a system of electronic surveillance involving thousands of cameras and facial recognition, and present it as concern for the citizen (framing). Citizens bend like grass under the pressure of the wind and are content that they are in the green in the state’s points system, allowing them to travel and enjoy small freedoms. The certainty effect.

One could go on listing examples for a long time. The main thing is that we understand the mechanisms and do not fall for them.

EU swooped down on Hungary

The last (relatively) sovereign state within the European Union has been eventually brought to toe the EU ideological line. Viktor Orban’s FIDESZ party has suffered a landslide defeat in Hungary. Viktor Orban, the incumbent prime minister, a man who would have visited Washington and Moscow within the same month, the man whom the European Union establishment hated viscerally (also referring to him as a dictator!) for sixteen long years has been toppled. The TISZA opposition party and its leader Peter Magiar won 138 seats in a 199-seat Hungarian parliament, which enables them to single-handedly change the constitution. The Brussels bureaucrats are gloating. How did it come about?

Democracy is the expression of the will of the people, as we know, but the will of the people is malleable. Long exposure to the intense anti-Orban propaganda that had been carried out for several years has had its effect. Add to this a couple of errors perpetrated by the Orban government, and you have the whole picture. What were the government’s errors? Corruption, the close liaison between the Hungarian authorities and President Donald Trump, who turned out to become a war-monger, the fact that Budapest backed up Israel in the latter’s conflict with Iran… Also, the European Union’s sanctions imposed on Hungary as punishment for Viktor Orban’s independence and the simple factor of Hungarians growing tired of having the same leader for so many years.

The overall result? The overall result will be that the European Union will be more monolithic than before. Viktor Orban was a beacon of independence and resistance to Brussels’ dictate. Sadly, the European Union’s steamroller has walked over the land of Magyars. Pity.

Pity because unanimity is a straight path to self-annihilation. Pity because unanimity petrifies and fossilises ideology – any ideology – and a petrified and fossilised ideology is suicidal even if it is an otherwise good ideology. Ever. Democracies pride themselves on having a system of checks and balances. Hungary was – even if small – such a check. Thanks to the veto right, this small country could effectively block some of the (more irrational) European Union initiatives. Now, all the European Union party-members will clap their leaders and execute their leaders’ orders. A divergent voice is what prevents a group or a system from going totally astray. This divergent voice of reason will be lacking in the years to come. Pity.

What is the basis of green ideology?

On our fear, of course. Visions of the end of the world have always deeply unsettled people. Priests and rulers exploited this to control the masses. Perhaps only the fear of foreign enemies was sometimes greater – be it the Germanic tribes for the Romans, the Mongols for Eastern Europeans, or Putin for the West.

The Greens capitalise on our fear of the end of the world, which they claim is imminent because of our own fault. This fear is a form of self-blame and masochism.

One of the fathers of so-called climate change, which has caused us sleepless nights and turned our lives upside down, was Prof. James Hansen, who worked for NASA. On 23 June 1988, his speech to the US Senate marked the beginning of a new era. The myth that CO2 was the sole factor responsible for global warming began. Yet the fact that humanity’s enormous progress over the last 200 years would not have been possible without the burning of fossil fuels is often glossed over.

It was the baby-boomer generation that first fell into the trap of green ideology, as they were gripped by a fear of nuclear war instilled in them by the Cold War. They said ‘no’ to nuclear power and ‘no’ to fossil fuels. The baby-boomers equated nuclear power stations with nuclear weapons and shut down the former. Now even Hansen has recognised his errors in reasoning and, during a demonstration at the Brandenburg Gate, implored the Germans not to phase out nuclear power (03/11/21).

Just as disinformation about nuclear power was hammered into the minds of the baby boomers for decades, so younger generations are being led to believe that renewable energy sources are more sustainable. It is shocking how few people died as a result of the Chernobyl accident. It is shocking that no one died as a result of the Fukushima accident. But these were dramatic events that made it easy to instil fear.

It is shocking that the efficiency of offshore wind farms is 40% lower than theoretically assumed, which means it takes 14 years for the total costs to pay off. Furthermore, as the wind does not always blow, gas or coal-fired power stations must be on standby to feed electricity into the grid, meaning that, in practice, they operate continuously. If not, it ends up like it did in Spain in April 2025, where there were massive blackouts. Energy storage systems are said to be an alternative to gas-fired power stations, but in the case of a 1GW wind farm, they increase costs by €10 billion and extend the payback period to 29 years. Economic madness.

The same applies to solar power stations – they require 300 to 800 times more land than traditional ones. The same goes for electric cars: 24 kilograms of copper are needed to manufacture an electric motor. Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek, a professor of chemistry at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate Research, has calculated that 8 tonnes of natural resources (soil, water, oxygen, etc.) must be sacrificed for 24 kilos of copper. It’s madness!

The green transition is emptying Europeans’ pockets, and electricity prices are skyrocketing. The green transition is making us dependent on China; it is making us weak. It is destroying nature. Particularly in Africa, where cobalt (indispensable for electronics and electric cars) and other raw materials are mined in ways that devastate the environment.

The Green ideologues could have cited well-known philosophers and economists. They could have referred to Martin Heidegger, who warned against treating the world (including nature) solely as ‘stock’. They could have referred to Thomas Malthus, who became famous for the theory that population growth would outstrip food production, leading to catastrophe, and extended this theory to non-renewable energy sources. But they did not, because they rely on and draw their inspiration from terrorists who glue themselves to the tarmac in the middle of the city and from screaming girls like Greta who try to scare us. They rely on parasites who receive funding from the major corporations in the eco-industry for their “activities”.

Utilities for hard times

This short article is intended for long-term investors who allow themselves to be distracted by Trump’s speeches and wars and are tempted by the mainstream trend of investing in AI, IT and weapons.

The so-called ‘utilities’ sector is a defensive sector of the economy that provides everyday goods and services. People can tighten their belts when it comes to spending on electronics, holidays or cars, but they cannot do without electricity, water or gas. This makes demand for these companies’ services relatively stable regardless of the economic cycle. During a recession, they usually fall less than the broader market, although in times of euphoria they tend to grow more slowly than technology or industrial companies. For a long-term investor, this is not a disadvantage but an advantage. Such a sector can, in fact, act as a portfolio stabiliser.

The second key element is the regulatory model. A significant proportion of revenue for companies in the utilities sector comes from tariffs approved by regulatory authorities. Whilst this limits the potential for very dynamic growth, it offers predictability in return. Many of these companies operate as local monopolies and therefore do not have to compete for customers in the same way as companies operating in highly competitive markets.

On the other hand, there are regulatory risks, as decisions made by public officials can affect a company’s profitability.

The third argument in favour of such companies is dividends. Utility companies are among the sectors that traditionally offer shareholders an attractive share of their profits. A stable cash flow enables such companies to distribute profits regularly, and for an investor focused on passive income, this is of the utmost importance.

However, one must not overlook the weaknesses of this sector. The construction and maintenance of energy, gas or water supply infrastructure require enormous capital expenditure. As a result, utility companies generally have high levels of debt. High debt levels are not unusual in the modern world, but they make the sector sensitive to changes in interest rates. As interest rates rise, so do the costs of servicing debt. Consequently, investors tend to view shares in companies in this sector somewhat like bonds. When bond yields rise, some capital flows away from these companies, which can put pressure on their share prices. However, this should not be interpreted as a deterioration in the quality of their business, but merely a shift in investor preferences.

Why might utilities be set for an extra boost to growth right now? In recent years, the utilities sector has gained a new and very strong case for investment: the development of artificial intelligence. AI does not operate in a vacuum. Behind every model, every data centre and every AI-based service lies a vast computing infrastructure that requires huge amounts of electricity. This means that the next industrial revolution driven by AI could increase energy demand in the coming years and, above all, have a positive impact on electricity supply companies. That is why the sector, which has been viewed as dull and uninteresting over the last few years, could now be one of the biggest beneficiaries of a changing world. In 2026, many market segments are performing poorly, particularly following the very strong growth of previous years. Some of the more defensive sectors are currently performing relatively well despite the war narrative, which shows that capital is once again seeking stability and predictable cash flow.

Looking for specific investment tips? Here you go. Here are a few companies that pay dividends regularly and increase them (US market): NextEra Energy, Atmos Energy, Essential Utilities, Eversource Energy, and Consolidated Edison.