John Rubino Substack - Smartphones are indispensable because they do a virtually infinite number of things. That’s also why they’re a privacy nightmare. Each of a phone’s basic functions — and each app that’s subsequently added to the mix — generate data that can be stored, shared, and mined by people who want to rob or control us. For […]

HoweStreet.com Radio - Commercial Real Estate going under at a record pace

John Rubino Substack - I’m on the road this week and can’t do much research. But there’s time to cut and paste some notable pieces of news. So, along the lines of January’s Gold And The Shrinking Trust Horizon, here’s a short piece from Matt Taibbi on the fallout from the lab-leak fiasco: Covid’s Origins and the Death of Trust Public has just published […]

John Rubino Substack - Rising interest rates don’t hit everything all at once. Some sectors feel the pinch immediately while others keep chugging along, seemingly oblivious to tightening money. But eventually, the pain spreads far enough to hurt and/or scare everyone, which brings on the cycle-ending recession and bear market. That day is getting closer, as multiple sectors report […]

John Rubino Substack - Ray Dalio’s bio is not that different from the typical “hedge fund asshole”: Harvard, Bridgewater Associates, billionaire, best-selling author. And of course he predicted and profited from the last few couple of financial crises. But instead of coasting on past success, Dalio has shifted gears and become a public figure whose take on the global […]

John Rubino Substack - Readers of this newsletter know the silver story by now. So it might come as a surprise to hear that maybe 95% of the investing public knows virtually nothing about monetary metals in general and silver’s unique supply/demand situation in particular. In such an obscure market, mainstream exposure can have a dramatic impact by exposing generalist investors […]

John Rubino Substack - There’s an old saying about predictions: It’s okay to forecast an event or a date, but not both. But lately, Jim Rickards has been predicting both the introduction by the BRICS coalition of gold-backed currency and the date, August 22. Here’s a short video where he lays it out. Based on subsequent headlines, it seems […]

John Rubino Substack - Most central banks have decided that 2024 is the year of the CBDC Big Bang. So…what exactly are these things and why should we find their imposition worth opposing? Mark Jeftovic, publisher of the Bitcoin Capitalist newsletter, just posted a detailed explanation. Here’s an excerpt: BIS: CBDC Roll-outs may require changing The Constitution Also: “Tiered remuneration” means no […]

John Rubino Substack - There’s a sense among some investors — or at least among some commenters on finance-oriented podcasts — that the current equities bull market will never end because [fill in your preferred variation on “the Powers That Be won’t let it end”]. This kind of frustration is understandable. A thing that shouldn’t happen has been happening […]

John Rubino Substack - A lot of people are moving these days, for a lot of reasons. But one of the biggest reasons is fear. Some badly-run cities and states are accumulating debt at a rate that guarantees massive future tax increases and cuts in essential services. Others have normalized crime to the point that city centers resemble a zombie apocalypse. […]

John Rubino Substack - Inflation was supposed to moderate this year. But in the UK, EU, and Japan that’s not happening. Here’s the UK… … the EU… Euro rallies after ECB raises rates and inflation forecasts European policymakers now expect core inflation to average past the 5% mark, while in March projection this forecast was only at around 4.6%. […]

John Rubino Substack - This started as a post on how our phones are spying on us and what we can do about it. But it turns out that the first part — how they’re spying on us — is so big and complex that it needs its own post. So the “what we can do” part will come […]

John Rubino Substack - The eurozone is like a big Rube Goldberg machine sitting on a slab of bedrock called Germany. As long as the German economy — and the European Central Bank that Germany controls — are okay, then the currency union is viable. But recently several things have happened: Interest rates have spiked across the eurozone in response to […]

John Rubino Substack - Two trends are converging to end the era of local bank accounts: Central banks are conspiring to force us out of traditional savings and checking accounts and into central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). Deposits are now fleeing local and regional banks because an inverted yield curve makes it impossible for those banks to pay competitive […]

John Rubino Substack - Gold bugs have a saying: “If you can’t hold it, you don’t own it.” This is emphatically true. Our banks, brokers, and crypto wallets can be looted by hackers or rapacious governments, or they can simply go dark during a power outage, cyberattack, or bank holiday. So the only wealth we truly own is what […]

John Rubino Substack - It’s creepy but true: Most of what we do online is observed by an ecosystem of predators ranging from marketers to hackers to foreign and domestic governments, many of which are out to trick, coerce, or rob us. There’s no one silver bullet to blind and/or repel them all. But there are tools that address specific threats […]

John Rubino Substack - Let’s start with the ongoing debate over who owns public spaces. In New York’s subways, is it mental patients or commuters (with their “sometimes delicious faces”)? In Australia, is it government bureaucrats or so-called “peaceful protesters”? On a less contentious note, Oxi-Clean has released a new ‘Clinton-Strength’ Formula guaranteed to get blood out of carpet:   In […]

John Rubino Substack - Sometimes you have to be outside a situation to see it clearly. And never has that been more true than with today’s late-stage, decadent, pseudo-capitalist global order. Libertarians, who are emphatically not part of the fiat currency/fractional reserve money system, understand that this financial arrangement is a recipe for disaster. What remains of the left, […]

John Rubino Substack - The US just reported that core PCE, “the Fed’s favorite inflation measure,” accelerated in April. This worsens the central bank’s dilemma: Growth is clearly slowing, while inflation, already at crisis levels, is rising. Luckily, the genius chart makers at Incrementum AG are on hand with a new “In Gold We Trust” report that addresses this very issue. Here’s a short […]

SilverRadio.FM - Silver Miners, Coins, and Stocks

John Rubino Substack - firmly in the rearview mirror. Most Americans still have jobs. And the debt limit pseudo crisis is in its final inning and — if history is any guide — will be resolved soon. So why does it seem like we’re tipping into a recession, or something much worse? The general answer is that behind the […]

John Rubino Substack - The ultimate goal, of course, is to completely dispense with Google, Facebook, and all their surveillance capitalist brethren. But for most people (including me) that’s a huge leap into the unknown. So … baby steps. For now let’s say you’re using Gmail, the Chrome browser, and/or Google Search and you’d like to minimize the amount […]

John Rubino Substack - I’m old enough to have followed Sam Zell during the second half of his storied real estate career. And in that time he’s been right in a big way on the major financial turning points. At the bubble peaks of 1999 and 2007, for instance, he sold most of his commercial real estate and loaded […]

John Rubino Substack - With all the (completely justified) angst surrounding central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), it’s easy to forget that the concept of digital money isn’t the problem. It’s just a tool like any other and can be used for good or evil, depending on who’s wielding it. Obviously, if a CBDC is managed by some combination of the Federal […]

John Rubino Substack - Turns out that my original list of ways they’re spying on us was incomplete. Readers have been fleshing out the story: Robert Wilkins I would like to mention that Google owns 23 and Me, the genetic analysis service that many people give as presents to friends and family members or use themselves. They send in a gene sample […]