ALWAYS CONSULT YOUR INVESTMENT PROFESSIONAL BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT DECISION
April 1, 2025 | Art of the Collapse, April 2025
Two strange and unprecedented things (“scandals,” “outrages” — it’s hard to know what to call them) are triggering meme-makers as this is written. First, Elon Musk morphed from industrialist to government efficiency crusader, in the process enraging the segment of the population that owns Teslas, leading them to … vandalize Teslas: The other thing was that government […]
March 30, 2025 | Seven Charts That Put the Gold Bull Market in Context
Remember that long, boring stretch where gold couldn’t break resistance at $2,000/oz? Here it is in the context of this century’s bull market — note the definitive breakout in early 2024. What’s driving the bull market? Central bank buying. And what’s driving that? Geopolitics. Emerging market central banks started planning for a post-dollar world when the Ukraine […]
March 24, 2025 | Recession Watch: Cratering Condos and Creeped-Out Consumers
Most of the following charts are from Wolf Street or the Kobeissi letter. Definitely follow those guys. Cratering Condos There’s no way to overstate how crazy US home prices have become. To take just one metric, the median US household income is $79,200, but it takes an annual income of $124,200 to buy the average American house. That’s […]
March 23, 2025 | $3,000 Gold = Gold Miner Acquisition Binge
Gold hit $3,000/oz last week. I’ve been waiting a long time to write that sentence! Now get ready for a torrent of gold miner cash flow to ignite a takeover boom. Mining analyst Marin Katusa just posted some thoughts on what this means. Here’s an excerpt: Gold Miners, the New Margin Monsters Most gold mines have costs […]
March 21, 2025 | Is Silver Being Suppressed?
Bubble Bubble Report’s Jesse Colombo just weighed in on the “Why isn’t silver $100!?” debate with a compelling case for manipulation. Here’s an excerpt: The mechanics of silver price suppression Many precious metals investors have heard about silver manipulation or suspected it, but few fully understand how it works or can clearly explain it. Many also […]
March 20, 2025 | Health Prepping: Stop Poisoning Yourself
Back in the nutritional Dark Ages, my wife and I would take our kids to McDonald’s and give them a choice of Sprite or Coke with their burgers and fries. We didn’t know at the time that the whole menu was just empty calories. Sorry kids! But it’s way worse than that. This is the […]
March 17, 2025 | The MSM Discovers Copper
Copper has had a quietly impressive run so far in 2025. But much more is coming as mainstream investors tune into the story. Consider this, from NPR of all places: Forget about rare earth minerals. We need more copper (NPR) – In recent weeks, you’ve likely heard a lot about rare-earth substances, thanks to President Trump’s stalled […]
March 16, 2025 | Nomi Prins: Time to Buy the Uranium Dip
Nomi Prins just posted an explanation for the uranium miners’ recent correction, and why it’s a buying opportunity for those who missed the previous big run. Here’s an excerpt: Why NOW is the Time for Uranium Here’s the latest outlook on uranium and what you need to know about the factors impacting its price. As we round […]
March 14, 2025 | Civil War in the UK?
I just watched a disturbingly plausible video about the rising odds of a UK civil war. The source is David Betz, a professor of “war in the modern world” at King’s College, London. He recently published an article titled Civil War Comes to the West in Military Strategy Magazine, in which he claimed that multiculturalism and mass immigration […]
March 12, 2025 | Gold Porn, Part 2: It’s a Real Bull Market
Gold (and now silver) are starting to do things not seen for over a decade. And the resulting charts are just gorgeous. Some recent examples: Foreign central banks are moving out of US Treasuries and into gold: Overindebted countries are cranking the money printing up to panic levels: Gold and silver are responding with identical […]
March 8, 2025 | Rhyming History: The 1990s Dot-Com Bubble
After World War II, the US and its allies were worried about staying in touch during a nuclear war. So they (I’m vastly over-simplifying here) created networking protocols and tools that eventually became the Internet. At first, these links were limited to scientists and the military. But as the tech was refined, it became clear […]
March 6, 2025 | Germany Chooses Inflation. Bond Investors Say “No Thanks”
Germans are known for their aversion to monetary instability, with good reason. They were victims of an epic hyperinflation in the 1920s, and don’t want to go back there. See: Rhyming History: Weimar Germany’s Hyperinflation. Now fast forward to the 2010s, when Germany was widely seen as both the best-run major country and the financial bedrock of […]
February 28, 2025 | Art of the Collapse, March 2025
Lots of disclosures are being promised…but there’s a bit of skepticism out there: POV: Elon Musk and DOGE arriving at Fort Knox for the audit. pic.twitter.com/Zgl599XMXy — Carl ₿ MENGER ⚡️🇸🇻 (@CarlBMenger) February 17, 2025 NSA Agents Horrified People Spying On Their Personal Conversations (Babylon Bee) – A group of federal employees expressed feelings […]
February 26, 2025 | Weirdest Housing Bubble Ever
Real estate is cyclical, which means it has its booms and busts, each of which differs slightly from the last. But today’s US housing market is so outside the norm that its strangeness has become the story’s main theme. Consider: Numerically speaking, housing used to be driven by young families buying starter houses. But today, […]
February 23, 2025 | Recession Watch: Should We Be Raising Cash?
Now, let’s zoom in on specific sectors that seem to be rolling over. Auto loan delinquency rates are spiking: Housing is frozen, but with inventories of homes for sale rising, a significant price decline looks imminent: Buyers Strike Crushes Green Shoots of Demand for Existing Homes, amid Surging Supply, Active Listings & Days on Market […]
February 21, 2025 | Wild Times in Precious Metals
Since the start of this century, gold has outperformed stocks — despite stocks being in an epic bull market: You’d think that gold would have gotten more attention after such an impressive run. But until recently, this has remained a largely neglected asset class. But Now…Damn In just the past few weeks, the news […]
February 20, 2025 | Why Timing Matters For Short Selling
Betting against overvalued stocks can be insanely profitable — if you use put options and get the timing right. But those are big “ifs”. Here’s a cautionary tale. Back in May of 2023, when this newsletter was new and its recommended Portfolios needed fleshing out, I named the homebuilder stocks as excellent short candidates. Home prices were too high, […]
February 12, 2025 | Matt Taibbi Explains the USAID/Politico Scandal
For readers not familiar with Matt Taibbi, he’s an old-school, 1960s liberal reporter who is appalled by the corruption of his industry. In the following article, he explains why the USAID drama is important and (at least partially) untangles the rat’s nest of interlocking, taxpayer-funded entities that have turned the search for truth into a propaganda sausage […]
February 11, 2025 | Gold Outlook: Murky For the Metal, Bright For the Miners
It’s another great day for gold, with $2,800 in the rearview mirror and $3,000 in traders’ crosshairs. This means it’s time to take a deep breath and consider gold’s — and the miners’ —near-term prospects. Reasons for Caution Let’s start with seasonality. Winter is usually a good time for gold, while spring and early […]
February 7, 2025 | Exposing the Empire’s Secrets In Real-Time – USAID is just the beginning…
The US political class has created a constellation of taxpayer-funded grifts and sinecures that provide swamp creatures a lifetime of employment for a minimal amount of work. All that’s required is moral flexibility. A graduate of, say, Georgetown University, can build a “career” by cycling through the following entities: Congressional/White House staff Washington think tanks […]
February 6, 2025 | Health Prepping: Vitamin D Prevents Tooth Decay
Vitamin D is the gift that keeps on giving. It’s already known to prevent cancer, heart disease, and dementia. And according to new research, it also prevents and/or fixes cavities. Here’s an excerpt from a much longer article on the subject by Dr. Joseph Mercola: Remember that sharp pain while biting down on popcorn? Or the dreaded dentist visit […]
February 3, 2025 | Art of the Collapse, February 2025
Making America fun to watch again… Transforming government with the stroke of a pen. (Sensitive readers should skip this one.) And in case anyone still needs to be reminded, never believe anything you haven’t personally witnessed:
January 31, 2025 | The Casino Enters “Peak Complexity”
Finance hasn’t been simple for a long time. Starting more or less in the 1980s, traditional instruments like stocks and bonds were joined by futures, options, private equity, junk bonds, and bespoke derivatives like credit default swaps. “Quants” now build “black box” trading algorithms to arbitrage the relationships between these things, and clients place bets […]
January 29, 2025 | Recession Watch: Did the Everything Bubble Just Pop?
Real estate, being expensive to finance and highly volatile at market peaks, is frequently a catalyst for recessions. And as Wolf Street’s Wolf Richter reports, housing is sending “peak cycle” signals. The supply of new houses for sale is spiking to previous bubble levels: In some formerly hot markets, it’s even worse: Houses aren’t selling at today’s price/mortgage […]
January 25, 2025 | Trump’s Biggest Policy Change Is Great For Gold
The president has definitely hit the ground running. But his most impactful policy move isn’t an executive order or cabinet appointment. It’s this: President Trump says he’ll ‘demand that interest rates drop immediately’ (CNBC) – President Donald Trump lobbed his first volley at the Federal Reserve, saying Thursday that he will apply pressure to bring down interest […]