Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.
Weekly Update
It’s been a couple of weeks since the last post, but there’s no ominous reason behind this. It’s just a case of there not being enough hours in the day, or enough days in the week.
Work continues to be a positive, and so much better than my previous two roles after leaving Lloyds. My new AFI Podcast venture has also been taking up a fair amount of time as we get that off the ground. As I’ve said before, it will probably be the case that updates here happen slightly less frequently than before, so thank you for sticking with me.
The AFI Podcast
Check out the AFI section of this site for links to the pod on the various platforms.
As a new podcast, getting noticed is difficult, so please help us out by sharing the links, and leaving a rating and review.
What I’m Doing
Listening: The Dungeon Anarchist’s Cookbook: Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 3 by Matt Dinniman.
Watching: The Diplomat (Netflix).
Reading: Abaddon’s Gate (Expanse Book 3) by James S. A. Corey.
Financial Update
Assets
Premium Bonds: £500.00.
Stocks and Shares ISA: £141,458.72.
Fuck It Fund: £0.00.
Pensions: £126,976.62.
Residential Property Value: £245,790.00.
Total Assets: £514,725.34.
Debts
Residential Mortgage: £173,115.21.
Total Debts: £173,115.21.
Total Wealth
Total Wealth: £341,610.13.
As my pipeline of business at work develops, I’m hoping to start regularly investing again soon. It’s been a long, long time since I was able to regularly invest in any significant way. I’m probably still another month away from being able to do this, but things are looking up.
One thing I’m appreciating more and more is how much I’m enjoying being self-employed in the right environment. Having greater control over my working day makes a huge difference. I can organise my time, get on with helping clients, and make decisions without feeling as though I need to justify every minute. There’s still responsibility, and plenty of work to do, but I’m trusted to do it.
That feeling of being treated like a grown-up shouldn’t be remarkable, but after some of my previous experiences, it really is. Before, it often felt as though I had a constant shadow looming over me. Even when I was doing what I needed to do, there was an underlying tension, a sense that another interruption or demand for an explanation was just around the corner. It’s difficult to feel confident when you’re constantly bracing yourself.
Now, I have support when I need it and the space to work independently. I’m finding that I can put more energy into the actual job because I’m spending less of it worrying about how I’m being perceived. Financial independence is still the goal, but having more autonomy along the way makes the journey considerably more enjoyable.
Top Ten Funniest/Most Crazy Conspiracy Theories
8. The Mandela Effect (Part 357)
7. Titanic Was Swapped With Olympic (Part 358)
6. The Phantom Time Hypothesis: What If Someone Just Made Up 300 Years? (Part 359)
5. The Moon Landing Was Faked (Part 360)
4. Project Blue Beam: When Faking the Moon Landing Just Isn’t Ambitious Enough (Part 361)
3. Climate Change Isn’t Real: The weather has entered the chat… (Part 362)
9/11 Was an Inside Job
We’re approaching the end of our journey through some of the world’s most extraordinary conspiracy theories, and this week we’re tackling perhaps the most controversial entry on the list.
On 11 September 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four passenger aircraft. Two were flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York, a third struck the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to regain control. Nearly 3,000 people were killed, with thousands more injured and countless lives permanently changed.
The attacks reshaped international politics, foreign policy, aviation security and the lives of millions of people. They contributed to wars, expanded surveillance powers and fundamentally changed how governments approached terrorism. There was a pre-9/11 world and a post-9/11 world.
They also, unsurprisingly, generated an extraordinary number of conspiracy theories.
Unlike Flat Earth or Hollow Earth, this isn’t something I enjoy joking about. Thousands of families lost loved ones, and the consequences are still being felt. Nevertheless, some of the claims made about 9/11 are so spectacularly flawed that they deserve examination, with the occasional application of ridicule where appropriate.
Questioning the official account is perfectly reasonable. Questioning governments is perfectly reasonable. Demanding evidence and accountability is perfectly reasonable, but questioning something and providing evidence for an alternative explanation are two very different things.
What exactly is the conspiracy theory?
That’s our first problem. There isn’t one single 9/11 conspiracy theory. I doubt there’s enough room in a single blog post to summarise even a fraction of them.
Some people believe the US government knew the attacks were coming but deliberately allowed them to happen. Others believe elements within government actively organised the attacks. Some suggest the aircraft were remotely controlled, the World Trade Center was brought down using explosives, or a missile rather than an aircraft struck the Pentagon. I’ve even seen people claiming the planes were holograms. If we could generate holograms that well, it would be incredible. Sadly, we can’t.
The theories are sometimes divided into LIHOP, meaning Let It Happen On Purpose, and MIHOP, meaning Made It Happen On Purpose. These are enormously different allegations. One suggests people with advance knowledge deliberately failed to intervene. The other suggests government insiders actually planned or carried out the attacks.
Annoyingly, discussions frequently move between them as though they’re interchangeable. One minute someone is asking why intelligence agencies failed to prevent the attacks. The next they’re suggesting explosives were secretly installed throughout the World Trade Center.
That’s quite a leap from A to B.
Why do people believe it?
The attacks were almost incomprehensible. Two enormous skyscrapers collapsed, thousands died and the world’s most powerful military appeared unable to prevent four hijacked aircraft from being used as weapons.
When something that significant happens, it’s understandable that people struggle to accept that a relatively small terrorist organisation could inflict such catastrophic damage. There’s a tendency to expect enormous events to have equally enormous causes.
Secondly, governments genuinely do lie. The United States has a history of intelligence failures, covert operations and political deception. Vietnam, Watergate and the misleading claims surrounding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction are hardly advertisements for unquestioning trust in government.
But here’s the important distinction: evidence that governments have lied about some things isn’t evidence that they’re lying about everything.
Otherwise, we can justify virtually anything. The government lied about Iraq, therefore, the Moon landing was fake. Governments conducted unethical experiments; therefore, Bigfoot is being held at Guantanamo Bay.
At some point, we need evidence connecting previous wrongdoing to the specific allegation being made.
“Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams!”
The basic argument is that jet fuel burns at temperatures below the melting point of structural steel; therefore, the fires couldn’t have caused the towers to collapse.
The first part is broadly correct. Steel melts at roughly 1,500°C depending on its composition. The problem is that the steel didn’t need to melt.
Steel loses strength as its temperature increases. Think about a blacksmith heating metal before shaping it. It doesn’t need to become a puddle before it becomes significantly easier to bend. The metal just needs to soften enough to be shaped.
NIST’s investigation identified a combination of aircraft impact damage, dislodged fireproofing and extensive fires. The impacts damaged structural columns and knocked fire-resistant insulation from steel components. Fires then heated the exposed steel, floors sagged, and exterior columns were pulled inward until the structures could no longer support the loads above them.
NIST estimated some fires reached approximately 1,000°C. At those sorts of temperatures, unprotected structural steel can lose a substantial proportion of its strength.
So “jet fuel can’t melt steel beams” attacks an explanation nobody actually needs. It’s like arguing chocolate can’t become soft because it hasn’t turned into liquid. If you put a chocolate bar in your pocket for a while, it will get pretty soft without turning completely into a liquid.
Controlled demolition?
This is probably the most visually compelling argument. Watch footage of the towers collapsing, and it’s easy to understand why someone might compare them to controlled demolitions. They’re enormous buildings; they collapse rapidly, and huge clouds of dust engulf the surrounding streets.
But something looking similar doesn’t establish that the same mechanism caused it.
Controlled demolition requires carefully planned destruction of structural supports. Engineers need access to the building, knowledge of its structure, preparation of components and carefully positioned explosives.
The towers had suffered catastrophic aircraft impacts followed by extensive fires. NIST found that the collapses began in the damaged impact and fire zones, with the upper sections subsequently descending onto the structures below. Investigators found no corroborating evidence that explosives initiated the collapses.
Once those upper sections began moving, enormous gravitational energy was released onto the structure beneath them.
Buildings aren’t indestructible simply because they’re large. Structural engineering relies upon forces being distributed through interconnected components. Damage enough components, weaken others through heat and eventually the remaining structure may become unable to carry the loads imposed upon it.
The fact the towers survived the initial impacts doesn’t mean they were guaranteed to survive indefinitely. Considering the damage, the time they remained standing was critically important because it allowed many people to escape. Had the towers collapsed immediately after impact, the death toll would have been much, much worse.
“What about the explosions?”
People reported hearing explosions during the attacks and collapses. That’s true and eyewitness testimony deserves to be treated seriously.
But the word explosion describes an event or sound. It doesn’t automatically identify its cause.
A catastrophic building fire and structural collapse can produce extraordinarily loud noises from rupturing equipment, failing structural components and falling debris. Conspiracy videos also highlight bursts of dust emerging from windows during collapse, describing them as explosive charges. NIST explained these as air and debris being forced outward as the descending structure compressed the floors below. It’s a bit like if you were to sit on an inflated balloon. If you apply enough pressure, the balloon will burst from the sides.
Does that mean every sound heard that day can be identified beyond doubt? Obviously not. With the absolute chaos of that day there will have been countless unidentified noises.
But an unexplained noise isn’t automatically a bomb.
Building 7: The conspiracy theorist’s favourite skyscraper
Now we arrive at probably the strongest-looking argument in the entire 9/11 conspiracy movement.
World Trade Center Building 7 wasn’t struck by an aircraft. It was a 47-storey building near the main complex and collapsed at approximately 5:20pm.
Footage looks dramatic and the collapse is frequently compared to controlled demolition. However, Building 7 had been damaged by debris from the collapse of the North Tower and burned for hours. Damage to water infrastructure also compromised its sprinkler systems.
NIST concluded that uncontrolled fires caused thermal expansion of structural components, ultimately triggering failure around a critical column and initiating progressive collapse.
As steel heats, it expands. That expansion can place enormous forces on structural connections. According to NIST’s analysis, thermal expansion caused a critical connection to fail, setting off a chain of structural failures. The internal structure was already failing before the exterior visibly descended.
There is also the famous claim that Building 7 experienced free fall. Interestingly, NIST acknowledged a period of free-fall acceleration during part of the visible collapse. Its explanation was that internal failures had already removed support from that portion of the exterior before this phase.
Critics dispute aspects of the modelling, and technical disagreement is legitimate. But disagreement with a structural model isn’t evidence that explosives were planted.
Building 7’s collapse was unusual. It was the first known example of a tall building collapsing primarily because of uncontrolled fires.
But unusual doesn’t mean impossible, and unprecedented doesn’t mean conspiratorial.
There is a first time for everything, including engineering failures.
“The Pentagon wasn’t hit by a plane!”
Another theory claims the Pentagon was struck by a missile rather than American Airlines Flight 77. Supporters often point to photographs and argue the visible damage was too small for a Boeing 757.
The problem is that an aircraft travelling at high speed doesn’t behave like a cartoon cut-out. It doesn’t punch a perfectly recognisable aeroplane-shaped hole into a building, complete with neat outlines for the wings and tail. Different components fragment, deform and penetrate structures differently.
More importantly, Flight 77 was a real aircraft carrying real passengers and crew. Evidence included radar information, eyewitness accounts, physical evidence and identification of victims.
Replace that aircraft with a missile and suddenly you need to explain what happened to the plane and its passengers, how records and physical evidence were falsified, who organised it and why anyone would disappear an actual passenger aircraft only to use a missile instead.
The conspiracy doesn’t simplify the event. It makes it vastly more complicated.
For this specific point, I also know someone who witnessed the aircraft flying overhead towards the Pentagon. I’ll take their account over claims that there was secretly a missile involved.
What about Flight 93?
United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to regain control. Some theories claim it was shot down, while others suggest an aircraft never crashed there at all.
The evidence includes recovered wreckage, human remains, flight-recorder information, radar records and investigation of the crash site. The cockpit voice recording also provided evidence of the struggle aboard.
Having learned about the other attacks, passengers attempted to prevent their own aircraft being used as another weapon. There is no credible evidence establishing that Flight 93 was shot down.
Once again, the alternative theory requires us to discard substantial evidence while creating even more questions.
Out of all the 9/11 conspiracy theories, this is probably the most likely, but being the most likely does not make it likely. It’s just the least bad theory. It is possible that during the struggle to take back the aircraft, the US military shot the plane down. In the context of what had already happened that day, it could realistically have been an option. Do I think it actually happened this way? No. Once again, too many people would have to know and be involved.
The pilot of the fighter jet wouldn’t be the only one to know. There would be the ground crew inspecting the plane on its return to base and noting the missing missile. There would be the various after-action reports. By this point, we’re already talking about dozens of people knowing that a) a fighter jet was sent to intercept a hijacked plane b) that hijacked place crashed, and c) the fighter jet returned to base having used some of its weapons.
In this scenario, 2+2 would reasonably equal 4.
“So, why didn’t the military stop the planes?”
This is a much more reasonable question.
How could four hijacked aircraft operate within American airspace without the world’s most powerful military stopping them?
The aviation security and air-defence systems of 2001 weren’t designed around hijackers deliberately crashing passenger aircraft into buildings. Previous hijackings generally involved demands, negotiations and attempts to divert aircraft.
The 9/11 Commission documented confusion, communication failures, inaccurate information and delays involving the FAA and military. In some cases, military personnel were responding to incorrect information about aircraft locations or hijacking status.
That’s a legitimate reason to demand accountability.
But incompetence, poor communication and institutional failures aren’t automatically evidence of deliberate participation.
Anyone who has worked in a large organisation knows multiple departments can fail spectacularly to communicate while supposedly working towards the same objective. Now imagine an unprecedented situation involving incomplete information where decisions have to be made in minutes.
Sometimes the explanation really is that people didn’t know what the hell they were doing.
That isn’t reassuring, but it is entirely plausible.
Also, in the context of the US, the points of departure for the hijacked planes and their targets were fairly close together. The two planes that struck the towers had been in the air for less than an hour before impact. The time between being hijacked, and for the authorities to notice the hijacking, and then impact, was not that long.
“There was suspicious trading before the attacks!”
Now we’re getting into territory particularly relevant to a financial blog.
There were claims that investors bought unusually large numbers of put options in airline companies before 9/11. Because puts can increase in value when shares fall, advance knowledge of an attack on the airline industry could theoretically have generated enormous profits.
That’s absolutely worth investigating.
And it was.
The Securities and Exchange Commission examined more than 9.5 million securities transactions from the weeks preceding the attacks. Investigators examined airlines, other companies, derivatives and market indices.
They found unusual activity, but investigated trades had explanations unrelated to advance knowledge. Some were connected to institutional strategies, while others followed investment recommendations. The SEC reported finding no evidence that anyone traded using advance knowledge of the attacks.
This illustrates an important point. An anomaly can justify investigation without proving the allegation.
If a company’s shares collapse tomorrow, somebody somewhere will probably have positioned themselves profitably beforehand. That doesn’t automatically mean they knew what was coming.
“The government needed an excuse to invade Iraq!”
There are entirely legitimate criticisms of American foreign policy after 9/11. Afghanistan was invaded in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, with claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction subsequently discredited.
But there’s a logical problem with treating the consequences of an event as proof someone caused it.
Benefiting from something doesn’t mean you organised it.
Governments can exploit crises they didn’t create. Politicians can use public fear to advance policies they already favoured. Businesses can profit from disasters without causing them.
The fact 9/11 was subsequently used to justify policies and military action doesn’t establish that the attacks were orchestrated to produce those outcomes. That requires evidence of planning and involvement.
We don’t need to invent an enormous conspiracy about 9/11 to criticise the Iraq War.
“But governments have considered false-flag operations!”
The concept of a false-flag operation is real. One frequently cited example is Operation Northwoods, a proposed US military plan from 1962 involving deceptive incidents intended to create support for action against Cuba.
The proposals were not implemented, but their existence demonstrates that officials have contemplated deeply unethical schemes.
That’s a legitimate historical observation.
It doesn’t demonstrate that an entirely different operation occurred nearly forty years later.
If I discover someone once considered robbing a bank, I haven’t proved they robbed every bank in the country.
Historical precedent can demonstrate that something is conceivable, but it cannot demonstrate that it happened.
For that, we need evidence specific to the event.
What about the official investigations?
The 9/11 Commission investigated the attacks and failures that allowed them to occur. Its findings included serious criticism of intelligence sharing, aviation security, preparedness and government response. NIST separately investigated the structural failures of the World Trade Center buildings.
Neither should be treated as sacred texts beyond criticism. It’s entirely reasonable to scrutinise their methods, assumptions and conclusions.
But rejecting an investigation doesn’t automatically establish your alternative.
It’s also worth recognising that some deeply uncomfortable findings about government failures came from official investigations themselves. Institutional mistakes weren’t universally denied or hidden.
The question is whether those failures demonstrate incompetence and inadequate preparation or deliberate participation in mass murder.
Those are fundamentally different conclusions.
Why I think this conspiracy is particularly damaging
With something like Hollow Earth, the consequences of believing it are fairly limited. If someone thinks there are dinosaurs living beneath Antarctica, they’re probably not doing much harm beyond making themselves look a bit daft.
9/11 is different.
Real people died in horrific circumstances. Families have spent decades living with the consequences, while survivors and emergency responders have suffered lasting physical and psychological effects.
That doesn’t put 9/11 beyond questioning. Serious scrutiny of government conduct, intelligence failures and the consequences of the attacks is important.
But there’s a responsibility to distinguish legitimate investigation from speculation presented as fact.
If we’re spending all our time arguing about whether jet fuel can melt steel beams, we’re not necessarily discussing the more important questions about intelligence failures, foreign policy, civil liberties and government accountability.
And perhaps that’s the biggest problem with this particular conspiracy theory.
“I don’t understand how this happened” is not the same thing as “therefore the government did it.”
Questions are the beginning of an investigation, not the conclusion.
Governments aren’t omnipotent. Intelligence agencies make mistakes. Security systems have weaknesses. People with relatively limited resources can cause catastrophic harm.
That’s arguably more frightening than believing someone secretly controls everything.
The 9/11 attacks were an extraordinary tragedy. They exposed serious weaknesses in American security and were followed by political and military decisions that deserve continued scrutiny.
None of that requires us to believe the attacks were secretly orchestrated by the American government.
You can distrust politicians, criticise intelligence agencies, oppose wars and demand accountability without believing that every catastrophe was secretly planned.
In fact, those criticisms become considerably stronger when they’re based on evidence rather than speculation.
The people demanding that we question everything sometimes seem remarkably reluctant to question their own conclusions.
Question everything. Including the damned conspiracy theory.
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, nor should they be considered advice.
If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional. If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:
Biolink
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bio.link/davidscothern.