My Year in Review: Writing, Technology, Politics, and Preserving Truth in a Broken System

 

My Year in Review: Building Ideas, Preserving Knowledge, and Challenging Broken Systems

This year wasn’t about one project. It was about a pattern. A direction. A refusal to sit quietly while broken systems continue unchecked.

When I look back over everything I worked on, researched, wrote, built, questioned, and planned, one theme keeps showing up over and over again: the need to preserve truth, protect people, and redesign systems that no longer serve us.

From Writing to Purpose

The year started with writing, but not casual writing. It was deliberate, structured, and increasingly focused on impact. Blog posts, essays, policy ideas, long-form reflections, and storytelling all served one purpose: making people think.

I explored government failure, corporate greed, healthcare injustice, inflation, labor rights, and why working people keep losing ground. These weren’t abstract opinions. They came from lived experience, historical research, and an unwillingness to accept surface-level explanations.

Writing became less about expression and more about documentation. Putting ideas on record. Leaving something behind that couldn’t be erased by algorithms or forgotten by convenience.

Storytelling as a Tool for Truth

This year also deepened my commitment to storytelling, not as entertainment, but as a way to show reality without filters.

Projects like Breaking the Chains: The Journey of Joe Jackson weren’t fiction for fiction’s sake. They were mirrors. Joe’s struggle was the struggle of millions of Americans working nonstop, uninsured, underpaid, and disposable to the system.

Children’s stories like The Christmas Letters and The Christmas Santa Lost His Magic weren’t just holiday books. They were about belief, loss, perseverance, and responsibility. They were about teaching values in a world that increasingly avoids them.

Storytelling became a way to say what statistics can’t.

Technology, AI, and the Future of Knowledge

One of the most important directions this year took was into knowledge preservation and artificial intelligence.

I didn’t just look at AI as a tool. I treated it as a responsibility.

I explored self-learning systems, autonomous improvement loops, knowledge graphs, and the idea that AI should preserve human knowledge instead of exploiting it. I worked on frameworks for self-programming AI, systems that could learn ethically, document truth, and improve without manipulation.

At the same time, I researched long-term data preservation. Five-dimensional optical storage. Billion-year data lifespans. Digital memory crystals. The idea that human knowledge, stories, and experiences deserve to outlive political cycles and corporate shutdowns.

The question driving all of it was simple:
What happens if we don’t preserve what actually happened?

Challenging Money and Power

This year also sharpened my focus on money and power.

Inflation. Debt. Currency debasement. Bailouts. A system where working people lose purchasing power while institutions are protected.

That’s what led me into deeper research on sound money, gold and silver, and systems like Kinesis that challenge fiat dominance. Not as hype. Not as speculation. But as an alternative worth understanding.

The message was consistent: people need options outside systems designed to drain them slowly.

Politics Without Theater

Politics was unavoidable this year, but I refused to treat it like a sport.

Instead of party loyalty, I focused on structure. The Constitution. Separation of powers. Where government overreaches. Where it fails to protect people. Where it protects itself instead.

I laid groundwork for real policy ideas. Healthcare cost controls. Corporate accountability. Transparent budgets. Technology-driven oversight. Giving citizens a real voice instead of performative voting.

Running ideas, not slogans.

The Memorial Question

One of the most powerful moments this year wasn’t about code or writing. It was a question:

What would it take to build a digital memorial to every person who has ever died in the United States?

That question summed up the year perfectly.
It combined history, technology, ethics, memory, scale, and respect.

It wasn’t about feasibility alone. It was about whether we value people enough to remember them properly.

What This Year Really Was

This year wasn’t clean or linear. It was layered.

Writing fed into politics. Politics fed into technology. Technology fed into preservation. Preservation fed back into storytelling.

Everything connected.

If there’s one thing this year proved, it’s this: progress doesn’t come from silence or comfort. It comes from asking hard questions, documenting uncomfortable truths, and refusing to let important ideas disappear.

I didn’t just create content this year.
I built foundations.

And next year isn’t about starting over.
It’s about building on everything already laid down.

The Negative Effects of Tariffs: Understanding the Downsides of Trade Barriers

 Tariffs, or taxes imposed on imported goods, are used by governments to protect domestic industries, raise revenue, or retaliate against other countries' trade practices. While tariffs can provide short-term benefits for certain industries, they often have negative effects on consumers, businesses, and the economy as a whole. Here’s a closer look at why tariffs can be harmful:

1. Higher Prices for Consumers

• Increased Costs for Imported Goods: When tariffs are imposed on imports, the prices of these goods increase, as the added tax is often passed on to consumers. This can make everyday items like electronics, clothing, and household goods more expensive for consumers.
• Reduced Purchasing Power: Higher prices mean consumers have less disposable income to spend on other goods and services. This can lead to reduced overall consumer spending, which can hurt the economy, particularly in sectors that rely heavily on consumer demand.

2. Higher Costs for Businesses and Reduced Competitiveness

• Increased Costs for Raw Materials and Components: Many industries rely on imported raw materials and components. When tariffs are applied to these imports, it increases the production costs for domestic companies. Higher input costs make it difficult for businesses to keep prices competitive, especially if foreign competitors are not facing the same tariffs.
• Lower Profit Margins for Domestic Businesses: Some businesses may try to absorb the increased costs of tariffs rather than pass them on to consumers, resulting in lower profit margins. This can limit a company’s ability to invest, expand, or hire new employees, reducing economic growth.
• Reduced Global Competitiveness: For companies that export goods, higher production costs caused by tariffs can make their products less competitive on the international market. This can lead to reduced sales and market share for U.S. businesses in global markets.

3. Retaliation and Trade Wars

• Retaliatory Tariffs from Other Countries: Tariffs often lead to retaliation from other countries, resulting in a trade war where each country imposes tariffs on the other’s goods. This can create a cycle of escalating tariffs, leading to significant economic disruption.
• Reduced Export Opportunities for U.S. Businesses: Retaliatory tariffs make it more difficult for U.S. businesses to export goods to other countries, reducing their customer base. For example, when China imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural products, American farmers faced a significant decline in sales, which harmed the agriculture sector.
• Global Trade Tensions and Instability: Trade wars can strain diplomatic relations and create uncertainty in the global economy. This instability can make businesses hesitant to invest or expand internationally, limiting global economic growth and cooperation.

4. Negative Impact on Domestic Jobs

• Job Losses in Export-Dependent Industries: While tariffs may protect certain domestic industries, they can harm export-dependent sectors. For instance, if other countries impose tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation, American companies in industries like manufacturing, agriculture, and technology may see decreased demand for their products, leading to job losses.
• Limited Job Creation in Protected Industries: While tariffs are intended to protect domestic jobs, they may not result in significant job growth in the protected industries. Automation, cost constraints, and other factors can limit job creation, meaning that the benefits for workers in protected industries may be smaller than anticipated.
• Shifts in Jobs to Lower-Cost Countries: High tariffs can encourage companies to shift production to other countries where tariffs are lower. This is especially common when manufacturing components are subject to tariffs, making it more economical to produce goods in regions with free trade agreements. This outsourcing can result in further job losses domestically.

5. Disruption of Global Supply Chains

• Increased Complexity and Costs in Supply Chains: Many modern businesses operate in complex global supply chains, where products are made with parts sourced from multiple countries. Tariffs disrupt these supply chains by making it more expensive to import necessary components, which can delay production and increase costs.
• Reduced Efficiency and Innovation: Global supply chains are often optimized to reduce costs and improve efficiency. Tariffs force businesses to find alternative sources, which may be less efficient or more expensive. This can also discourage innovation, as companies may have fewer resources to invest in new technologies or processes when dealing with increased costs and complexity from tariffs.
• Unpredictability and Increased Inventory Costs: Tariffs create uncertainty in supply chains, as companies don’t know if or when tariffs may increase or decrease. To avoid sudden price hikes, some businesses increase inventory, tying up cash in stockpiles. This inefficiency increases storage costs and can make supply chains less flexible.

6. Negative Impact on Economic Growth

• Slower GDP Growth: Tariffs can reduce both domestic and international demand by raising costs, which can lead to slower GDP growth. Lower consumer spending, decreased exports, and reduced business investment can all drag down economic growth, especially in a highly interconnected global economy.
• Risk of Recession: If tariffs are imposed widely and result in trade wars, the economic slowdown can lead to a recession. This was seen historically in the 1930s with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, which worsened the Great Depression by reducing international trade and damaging the global economy.
• Unintended Long-Term Consequences: Over time, the negative effects of tariffs—such as weakened industries, higher prices, and less competitiveness—can compound and create a drag on the economy that’s hard to reverse, even if tariffs are later reduced or removed.

7. Less Consumer Choice and Lower Product Quality

• Reduced Access to Foreign Products: Tariffs can reduce the variety of products available to consumers, as imported goods become more expensive or scarce. This is especially problematic for specialized goods that are not widely produced domestically, such as certain electronics, luxury goods, and specialty foods.
• Reduced Quality and Innovation: Tariffs may lead to a focus on protecting domestic industries rather than encouraging them to improve. If a domestic industry is shielded from foreign competition, it has less incentive to innovate or improve quality. Over time, this can result in inferior products and services, limiting choices for consumers.

8. Potential Environmental and Ethical Concerns

• Encouragement of Less Environmentally Friendly Practices: Tariffs can encourage domestic production that may not be as environmentally sustainable as imports. For instance, if a country relies on imports for certain products that are produced more efficiently abroad, domestic production may increase environmental costs.
• Exploitation in Developing Countries: Trade barriers can indirectly harm workers in developing countries who rely on exports for their livelihoods. For example, if tariffs reduce demand for goods from lower-income countries, it can negatively impact their economies and make it harder for workers to access fair wages and decent working conditions.

In Conclusion

While tariffs may offer some short-term protection to domestic industries, they often come with significant downsides, including higher costs for consumers and businesses, potential job losses, and slower economic growth. They can also disrupt global supply chains, reduce competitiveness, and lead to retaliatory trade measures. A balanced approach that encourages free trade, while addressing unfair practices through targeted measures rather than broad tariffs, can help create a healthier economy and a more stable global trade environment.