The prices of gold and silver began to bounce back early Thursday after facing steep losses a day earlier, when silver shed as much as 6% of its value, as Treasury yields and the U.S. dollar both fall amid a tech stock selloff.
Gold futures surged 1.9% as of 9:15 a.m. EDT Thursday to a price of $4,183.90, recouping much of its losses from Wednesday, while spot gold rose 1.3% to $4,159.00. Continue reading
Diesel is the quiet bill. It does not show up on the campaign poster. It shows up in the grocery aisle, the lumber yard, and the price of getting a truck from the field to the shelf. Continue reading
A lot of people may not like what Donald Trump just said about the economy, but it is accurate. As you will see below, he recently warned that we could soon be facing “an economic depression much like 1929”, and without a doubt the stage has been set for a downturn of that magnitude.
Right now, we are in the midst of a global bond crisis, the housing market is paralyzed by high mortgage rates, stores and restaurants are closing all over the nation, there have been mass layoffs in the tech industry, demand at food banks is soaring, and we are experiencing a seemingly endless cost of living crisis that stretches back all the way back to the beginning of this decade.
So I very much agree that we are potentially facing a full-blown economic depression. Continue reading
In 1938 the airline business was brand new – only 35 years had passed since the Wright brothers’ first flight at Kitty Hawk.
Hardly anyone had even seen an airplane. A coast-to-coast round trip cost about $260, half the price of a new car, so passengers were mostly very wealthy.
The airlines were small, and during the Depression they were losing money. Congress was afraid they would undercut each other into bankruptcy, and the country would lose an industry it needed for its mail and its defense.
So lawmakers created the agency that became the Civil Aeronautics Board. For the next forty years, the Board set the airfare on every interstate route in America. They even decided which airlines were allowed to fly those routes.
The idea was well intended; they viewed airlines as an element of national security that needed protection.
But whatever good intentions the Board started with, by the 1970s it was just a soulless bureaucracy that stifled competition and said “no” to everything new. Continue reading
The Oil City Oil Exchange set the price of crude oil for the nation during the late 19th century. Oil Region Library Association
The fall of 2026 is a moment of energy centrality, when geopolitics unfolding far away shows up in Americans’ everyday lives.
In Pennsylvania, the statewide diesel price averages US$6.50 per gallon. In Iowa, farmers are paying more than $6 a gallon for diesel. And in Alaska, unleaded gas runs more than $9 a gallon.
As a distinguished professor of history and environmental studies at Penn State Altoona, I write widely about oil and energy issues. This moment has me thinking about how the oil industry began nearly 170 years ago in northwestern Pennsylvania. Continue reading
Well … here it is my friends – that longer, dry, crisp, hard, factual analysis and assessment on the current state of America’s economy such as it is, along with the reasons that so many Americans still feel like they’re drowning even as Trump and Bessent assure us all this is “the Greatest Economy Evah” and “Americans are living in a Golden Age“, which makes me want to puke for a litany of reasons. Continue reading
Ex-CIA Officer Found With Over $40M in Gold Bars Pleads Guilty to $194M Fraud
A former high-ranking CIA official who embezzled nearly $200 million from the federal government lied about his military background and education to climb the ranks at the spy agency, federal prosecutors revealed.
David J. Rush pleaded guilty in Virginia federal court to one count of wire fraud. His plea comes months after an FBI raid on his home uncovered 298 gold bars worth $46 million, $2.1 million in cash and dozens of luxury items.
“Federal employees are entrusted with serving the American people, not themselves,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche. “The Trump Administration is committed to rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government, including by prosecuting those who foolishly defraud American taxpayers… (Continue to full article)
‘America’s Best Doctor’ Learns His Fate After Stealing More Than $36MILLION From Taxpayers as Fraud Epidemic Continues to Be Exposed
An Arizona doctor will spend nearly eight years behind bars for a massive healthcare fraud scheme that saw his business rake in $36.5 million in just six months.
Dr Irfan Fazil, 54, was accused of being the mastermind behind a multimillion dollar scheme involving bogus treatments, so called ‘phantom billing’ and even siphoning stolen cash overseas to Dubai and Pakistan.
He was indicted in June on a sweeping list of felony charges, including fraud, theft, conspiracy and drug offenses, before admitting his guilt just months later.
Last week, Fazil, who had twice been voted a top kidney doctor, was sentenced in Yuma County Superior Court to seven and a half years in prison, according to Arizona’s state attorney general.
Attorney General Kris Mayes also revealed that he will serve seven years of probation after his release for the scheme targeting the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS).
‘Dr Fazil abused his position as a physician to steal more than $36 million from a taxpayer funded program that exists to provide health care to Arizona’s most vulnerable residents… (Continue to full article)
Trump’s Proposed Social Security Rule Could Cut Benefits for Nearly 400,000 Americans
Many people think of Social Security in the context of retirement plans. But Social Security doesn’t only pay retirement benefits. The program also provides benefits to people with little income or financial resources through Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
Congress created the SSI program in 1972, with the first benefit payments issued in January 1974 to provide financial support to low-income seniors and people with disabilities. As of August 2026, about 7.31 million people were receiving SSI payments, according to the Social Security Administration’s latest data.
But now, a new proposal from the Trump administration could significantly reduce monthly benefits for hundreds of thousands of low-income Americans who rely on SSI, and the consequences could be horrendous if the proposed rule becomes law… (Continue to full article)
The Halloween Trumpkin!
Why Bennett… Isn’t a bit early for this?
Not in my mind. It’s all going nutz anyway… Why posting this just reminds of a Handy Candy!
Me, working on my car in the garage last night to escape the high price of hiring a real mechanic
Well now, let’s sit a spell and talk straight about this here American economy, the way a man might lean on a fence rail and tell it to his neighbor without any fancy talk or Washington double-speak.
Right now, in the fall of 2026, the numbers on the surface look pretty fair. The country’s still growing — factories humming, shops taking orders, folks going to work. About a hundred and sixty thousand new jobs showed up in August alone, and the unemployment line sits at a tolerable four percent and change. Poverty’s down to about one in ten people, the lowest we’ve seen in a long while, and the average family is bringing home more real money than ever before — somewhere around eighty-seven thousand dollars a year after you adjust for the rising cost of everything. Wall Street’s stock numbers keep climbing like a young man full of beans, and the big companies are making profits that would make an old-time banker whistle. Continue reading
That’s how much the national debt grew by in fiscal year 2026, which just ended last week on September 30.
$2.3 trillion in a single year is clearly and obviously runaway debt growth; think about it – the entire national debt didn’t reach $2.3 trillion until 1987.
By then the country was 211 years old, and it had been through a revolution, a civil war, two world wars, and the Great Depression. Now Congress adds that much in a single year. Continue reading
