John Rubino Substack - Stocks are melting up while government officials claim credit for a soft landing. And yet… The US Index of Leading Economic Indicators (LEI) continues to predict a slowdown while GDP, which normally tracks the LEI, remains strong. Which one is right? The December index of business conditions in the New York Fed’s territory plunged to -43, the […]

John Rubino Substack - Vitamin D pops up in pretty much every general discussion of health maintenance and disease prevention. Having enough of it seems to help while having too little seems to cause — or at least associate with — everything from cancer to heart disease. So keeping lots of vitamin D in one’s bloodstream is kind of […]

John Rubino Substack - The Great Taking remains a fringe subject, mostly ignored by the mainstream media. But in the sound money community, a growing list of heavyweights have concluded that it’s legit. Here’s a video from GoldSilver’s Mike Maloney: Mark Jeftovic of The Bitcoin Capitalist recently posted an in-depth analysis, part of which is here: The Great Taking: the latest anti-mainstream conspiracy […]

John Rubino Substack - Healthy economies have a natural background rate of hiring and firing, as employers adjust to changes in their environment. But when the firing part of the process starts to dominate, trouble frequently follows. This might be one of those times, based on the surge in layoff announcements by brand-name companies. Here’s a list that just […]

John Rubino Substack - Everyone on Earth wishes they’d loaded up on Bitcoin back when it was, like, $10.   The fact that most investors have chosen not to ride that particular rollercoaster can be attributed to two things. First, cryptocurrencies were complicated to buy and store safely, which put them beyond the reach of most non-techies (myself included). Second, […]

John Rubino Substack - The past few years were — we were told — an emergency in which all had to sacrifice for the greater good. So how did corporate profits rise by $1 trillion during that same time? Charles Hugh Smith, whose excellent substack recently launched, just posted an explanation for this seemingly impossible (or at least counterintuitive) event. I’m […]

John Rubino Substack - GDP is still growing, home prices are still high, and the unemployment rate is still low. But under the surface, the bad numbers just keep coming: U.S. manufacturing sector shrinks for 14th straight month in December (MarketWatch) – The new-orders index fell 1.2 percentage points to 47.1 in December (below 50 indicates contraction). Prices fell […]

John Rubino Substack - In December, some prestigious universities made the (in retrospect) horrendous mistake of letting their presidents testify before Congress. The result was not pretty — except for meme creators, who had a field day: But the Ivy League’s public humiliation wasn’t the only novel thing to happen in a federal government building last month, as staffers were […]

John Rubino Substack - Hi everybody, On January 3, this newsletter will be one year old. Amazing how fast the time went by! Thanks for a great experience. Being part of this growing community and hearing your thoughts about the crazy world we’ve inherited has been both fun and educational. Going forward, there are several things I’d like to […]

John Rubino Substack - Recently, Costo began selling gold bars on its website (see Did Gold Just Become An Impulse Buy?). The bars were a big hit, generating revenues of $100 million in the most recent quarter. Now Walmart has opened its own Precious Metals Shop: Who’s next? If gold works for the biggest-box retailers, expect Target and other similar chains […]

John Rubino Substack - The US presidential campaign is like a boxing match where the undercard is way more interesting than the main event. On the Democrat side, RFK Jr. is stomping all over Establishment verities like open borders and vaccine mandates while stealing a big chunk of what was once seen as Joe Biden’s base. On the Republican side, Donald […]

John Rubino Substack - There’s a debate over the best way to achieve career success: Should you become great at one thing or good at multiple things? The first strategy is obvious — get a Ph.D. in a useful subject and do that one thing better than almost anyone else. But the second strategy — known as “skill stacking” […]

John Rubino Substack - The Nestmann Group is doing great work on privacy-related topics like second passports and offshore investing. Here’s their take on “privacy land trusts” that make it possible to own real estate anonymously — which sounds useful in this increasingly litigious, authoritarian world. What is a Land Trust and How Does it Work? (Mark Nestmann) – You […]

John Rubino Substack - In November, Panama’s government caved to growing protests and shut down a large copper mine. This was serious but survivable for one of our portfolio’s royalty companies (see Just How Bad Was Franco-Nevada’s Bad News), but it’s an existential threat for First Quantum Minerals, which owns and runs the Cobre Panama mine. The new normal? Until recently, an event […]

John Rubino Substack - Readers have been asking me to check out and comment on David Webb’s The Great Taking. It’s on the to-do list. But in the meantime, other people have started covering it. Brighteon’s Mike Adams just posted a video that uses Webb’s insights as a launching point for a discussion of real assets and why they’re more crucial than ever. […]

John Rubino Substack - One of the (many) disappointing things about the gold/silver miners has been their failure to respond when precious metals have gone up. Gold, though not exactly on fire for most of 2023, did touch a new all-time high in early December. But (as far as I know) not a single gold/silver miner was anywhere near […]

John Rubino Substack - CBS News just conducted a poll that paints Americans as too economically illiterate to deserve a future of freedom and prosperity. Here’s how Tom Woods, author of Diary of a Psychosis: How Public Health Disgraced Itself During COVID Mania, addressed it in a recent mailing: Sometimes you look around and see signs of hope. And you’re not being […]

John Rubino Substack - Americans have spent the past few years putting ever-bigger parts of their day-to-day lives on plastic. And now the stats are brutal: Total credit card debt recently pierced $1 trillion while personal interest expense has gone parabolic. Credit card usage, as a result, has dropped back below pre-pandemic levels: Meanwhile, default rates on credit cards […]

John Rubino Substack - A question is haunting the dwindling tribe of blue state conservatives: What happens when all their like-minded friends leave and the entire state becomes an impoverished, crime-ridden version of San Francisco? It seems that a growing number of people aren’t sticking around to find out. From today’s Zero Hedge: “Escape Liberal Hell”: Oregon, Washington Republicans Flee […]

John Rubino Substack - One of the fun things about bull markets is watching resistance levels turn into support. Gold, for instance, spent three years banging into $2000/oz and recently broke through, touching $2125 on December 1. Then the selling started, pushing the price down to, as this is written, $1997. If the “$2000 is now support” thesis holds, buyers will […]

John Rubino Substack - De-dollarization events that would once have been a big deal have become common lately. Some examples: UAE officially stops using dollar for oil trades (Watcher) – The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is asking BRICS countries to settle oil trade in local currencies and not the U.S. dollar. The Middle Eastern nation is aiming to diversify […]

John Rubino Substack - Henry Kissinger died in November, launching a zillion memes: Back in the land of the alive but hungry, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman declared that inflation is not nearly as bad as ignorant Americans believe. Some begged to differ: A big holiday thanks to the FBI for protecting us from an upsurge in terrorist activity: FBI Closely […]

John Rubino Substack - In March 2022, there was a disruption in the nickel market that spiked the metal’s price. The lucky investors and market-makers who owned long futures contracts made fortunes. Just kidding. The exchange on which the futures traded canceled them and stiffed the contract owners. Some of the victims understandably brought suit and were awarded a […]

John Rubino Substack - Signs are multiplying that the US housing bubble is about to pop. To start with the headline number, home sales are back at Great Recession levels: Declining sales are no surprise when viewed against a backdrop of the worst affordability in American housing history. The following chart explains why Boomers are such a cocky generation: […]

John Rubino Substack - Some readers responded to last Wednesday’s post on gold’s trading pattern (Gold: Resistance Is … Finite) with shock that I didn’t know gold is a manipulated market where technicals don’t matter. This gives us a good jumping-off point for a look at several forms of gold manipulation that have been practiced over the years: Wall […]