April 12, 2023 | The Cobalt Gold Rush and the East Palestine Disaster

Holidays in my childhood were spent at my grandparents’ farm in Plain Grove, Pennsylvania, 35 miles from East Palestine, Ohio. My grandfather’s grandfather fought at Gettysburg and homesteaded the 160-acre farm after the Civil War. My grandmother sold it in the 1960s for $13,000, lacking a male heir to do the work; but my relatives […]

April 12, 2023 | Services Inflation Rages, Durable Goods Prices Rise Again after 6 Months of Declines. Food Inflation Backs Off, Energy Plunges

he Consumer Price Index (CPI) for March, released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was marked by plunging energy prices and surging services prices. Food inflation slowed, and month to month actually dipped for the first time in nearly three years. But durable goods inflation month-to-month suddenly rose again, after having been negative for […]

April 11, 2023 | Dimon Suggests PROPERTY CONFISCATION to Combat Climate Change

Democracy is under attack. JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon , who has been bought by the World Economic Forum, believes the US government should seize private property to combat climate change. This is not an exaggeration. In his annual letter to shareholders, Dimon stated “governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations” may need to invoke “eminent domain” in […]

April 11, 2023 | Worst of Stock Market Losses Come During Recessions and Rate Cuts

A negative US 10-year minus 3-month yield spread has signalled every incoming recession of the last 60 years (grey bars below courtesy of Charlie Bilello). The current reading, at -1.67%, is the most negative ever recorded. Still, bullish hopes spring eternal. While most economically-sensitive sectors have floundered for two years: small cap stocks (-27% from […]

April 10, 2023 | Missing Middle

Happy Monday Morning! A few weeks ago I wrote a post called Everything is a Choice. I argued that many of the housing issues we are facing today are policy decisions. They are choices made by elected officials. Whether it be interest rates, immigration policy, taxes, mortgage underwriting standards, or municipal zoning. Many of these issues […]

April 10, 2023 | People We Should Know: Ron Paul

Very few of you need an introduction to Ron Paul. So think of this instead as an homage, inspired by this T-shirt I just found on Amazon:   Fully Formed Ron Paul didn’t grow into himself over the course of a lifetime. He seems to have emerged fully formed, a libertarian with total conviction and […]

April 10, 2023 | Taleb on Bitcoiners, Venture Capital Ponzi’s and Plumbers

Taleb is a character, to be sure, and he offers many cogent insights in this segment. I especially resonate with the idea that, unlike sales skills, expertise comes from first-hand risk work: seeing what goes wrong and cleaning up mistakes and messes; then designing systems and approaches to minimize the impact of bad outcomes. The […]

April 10, 2023 | Yellen Admits Truth Behind the Inflation Reduction Act

The Inflation Reduction Act has only increased inflation. Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen came out and admitted the truth – the act’s entire premise is to push the climate change agenda forward. “The Inflation Reduction Act is, at its core, about turning the climate crisis into an economic opportunity,” Yellen admitted. It provided […]

April 9, 2023 | The Commercial Real Estate Bust Isn’t Coming. It’s Here

Remember that imminent commercial real estate bust? It seems to have started. Beginning with a little background, the second half of the 2010s was a great time for massive buildings that could be financed for next to nothing and filled with pre-pandemic workers who still thought a “job” meant commuting to an office every day. The average […]

April 9, 2023 | Lawyers Have Much to Fear from AI Bots

Anyone who has played around with ChatGPT knows that it is just dumb enough to succeed wildly. It harbors no opinions, grudges or wit, and it can talk a blue streak without saying anything interesting or exceptionable. Artificial intelligence seems particularly well suited to mimicking the rote tasks that lawyers charge clients hundreds or even […]

April 9, 2023 | Thinking the Unthinkable

“Thinking the Unthinkable.” What does that phrase bring to mind? To me it suggests a situation that has become so stressed you are forced to consider undesirable solutions. Yet the opposite is possible, too. Thinking differently may reveal an immensely profitable and beneficial solution. I have been in and around markets now for well over […]

April 8, 2023 | Trading Desk Notes For April 8, 2023

Will the Fed choose financial stability over fighting inflation? Markets have been trying to guess when the Fed will stop raising rates for months. There are several “reasons” why the Fed might change policy, including “something important breaks,” the economy goes into recession, and/or inflation falls.   But it seemed that every time investors expected the Fed to […]

April 8, 2023 | “Indicted We Stand” Rap Song

Above is an “extreme MAGA terrorist” rapping about the largest witchhunt in US political history. Americans from all walks of life are disgusted with our political system. “After Trump, I believe they’re after us all.”

April 8, 2023 | This Week in Money

• Ross Clark –  Stock Markets, Impact of OPEC Production Cuts, Gold, Silver
• Victor Adair –  (10:58) Credit Markets, Recession, Gold, Silver
• Mark Leibovit –  (39:25) Interest Rates, Inflation, Gold, US Dollar, Lunar Cycles.  Special Offer! Receive 50% Off VR Trader Newsletters! Enter Promo Code 2022HALFOFF.
• Zarko Meseldzija – (1:42:33) CEO of RecycLiCo™ Battery Materials Inc. on Company Showcase – CEO Discusses RecycLiCo’s Strategic Outlook on Battery Recycling.  Read InsideEvs Article – “US And Japan Enter Into Electric Car Battery Materials Trade Deal“.  Read Reuters Article – “BMW Bets on Design and Recycling, Not Mining, To Lower Battery Costs“.  Read Tesla Presentation – “Master Plan Part 3 – Sustainable Energy for All of Earth”.  Read Electrek Article – “Everything You Need To Know About The IRS’s New EV Tax Credit Guidance“.  Video  – The demonstration plant for the RecycLiCo™ Patented Process is now operational in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Questions?  Email or Phone: 778.574.4444

April 8, 2023 | People We Should Know: Eric Brakey

Normally, the “People We Should Know” series is at most a once-a-week thing. Twice in a single day will almost never happen. But this Kim Iverson video just popped up in which she interviews Maine State Senator Eric Brakey, whose anti-Ukraine war speech apparently went viral a couple of weeks ago. His explanation of libertarian principles like […]

April 8, 2023 | Tech Talk for Saturday April 8th 2023

The Bottom Line The calm before the storm! Frequency of first quarter reports by S&P 500 companies starts slowly next week and ends in a rush on Friday. Initial focus is on reports released by major U.S. banks. Consensus calls for a year-over-year drop in first quarter earnings by S&P 500 companies of 6.6%. Responses […]

April 8, 2023 | Global Warming Confusions

That Trudeau is determined to reduce domestic production of crude oil and natural gas is difficult to accept. Particularly during the discomforts of government’s essential role in imposing price inflation and still having the hatred on for fossil fuels. Sadly, the delusion extends to nitrogen which for a thousand years farmers have been replacing what […]

April 7, 2023 | He Who Has The Gold Makes The Rules

By Peter Hambro Reaction, London Thursday, April 6, 2023 Straws in the wind presage the oncoming storm and not everyone notices in time. One such straw has just appeared in the gold market and only the most beady-eyed of your readers will have noticed that JP Morgan Chase did not, as is usual, roll-over its […]

April 7, 2023 | Donald Trump Will Be Convicted

  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that the Democrats would have stooped to such a low position as they have by indicting Trump. This is so in-your-face political and I can GUARANTEE that Trump will be convicted and the facts will NEVER matter. New York is the MOST corrupt legal system […]

April 7, 2023 | A Gold Market Revival Has Arrived

Gold prices took off higher this week as doubts about the US dollar spread throughout the markets. The gold bugs have been very quiet during this inflationary period, until now. Are gold and gold miners about to catch a bid? Early articles I’ve written in this weekend note series were on gold, in 2015 and […]

April 7, 2023 | People We Should Know: Jimmy Dore

Something interesting is happening on the left side of the US political spectrum. People who view themselves as liberal or even socialist are concluding that we’re now ruled by a single “uniparty” — in effect an aristocracy — that profits from wars, pandemics, and financial crises, and actively creates these events in order to impoverish, distract, and […]

April 7, 2023 | CBC Marketplace: Mortgage Scam in Ontario

Some seniors across Ontario are at risk of losing their homes in an elaborate scam that involves door-to-door equipment rental contracts, low-quality renovations and unaffordable high-interest mortgages. Marketplace speaks to people who feel they’ve been scammed, some on the brink of losing their homes and someone who already has. Here is a direct video link.

April 6, 2023 | Fed’s Balance Sheet Plunges by $101 Billion in Two Weeks, as QT Continues and Bank Liquidity Support Begins to Unwind

The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet plunged by $101 billion in two weeks – by $74 billion in the current week and by $27 billion in the prior week – as quantitative tightening (QT) continued at the normal pace and as banks have started paying back the liquidity support offered by the Fed when Silicon Valley Bank […]

April 6, 2023 | Who is Funding Ukraine

Every week, there is a new announcement of the US pledging additional aid to Ukraine. Biden has provided Zelensky with a blank check to fund this war while his own country’s infrastructure crumbles. The Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative led by the Department of Defense is providing Ukraine with another $2.1 billion for funding. The announcement […]