On Friday afternoon the Treasury Department released its final numbers for fiscal year 2026, which just ended on September 30, and the results are pretty much what you’d expect: horrible, appalling, inexcusable!
Treasury reported a total budget deficit of $2 trillion, $220 billion worse than the year before.
And once again, mandatory spending – things like Social Security and Medicare – plus interest on the debt, exceeded 100% of tax revenue. Continue reading
Artificial Intelligence Is About To Eliminate 50%-75% Of All White-Collar Jobs
Good news, if you’re retired: Social Security just locked in its biggest raise in 40 years.
On Wednesday, the Social Security Administration announced that nearly 72 million Americans will get a 3.6% cost-of-living adjustment (“COLA”) starting in January. Social Security benefits have risen 26% since 2021 – the biggest five-year increase since the end of America’s last great inflation, 1982-1986.
And these enormous increases to the government’s costs are just getting started. We are not at the end of a great inflation – we’re only at the very beginning. Continue reading
Precious metals, which were the best-performing asset class in 2025, have looked weak in 2026. Specifically, gold is down around 3.5% for the year. The yellow metal started the year strong and continued its rally from the previous year, hitting an all-time high in January. However, it failed to hold those levels and has lost more than a quarter of its value from its peak. Continue reading
Gold is struggling to regain its footing after retreating from September highs above $4,400 an ounce, as a stronger U.S. dollar, surging Treasury yields and expectations of further Federal Reserve tightening weigh on the precious metal.
But while speculative investors have been reducing their exposure, central banks and gold-backed exchange-traded funds continue accumulating bullion, raising an increasingly important question:
Is gold entering a prolonged correction, or is the recent selloff creating another buying opportunity? Continue reading
The dollar as we know it about to be burned away.
Trump has given a particularly salient warning without being the least bit astute. He said that we are heading into another Depression. But only if we elect Democrats to change the power center of congress.
It is an easy prediction in that, yes, we are likely heading into another Depression. We’re already on the path. One thing, however, is, at least, shrewd about Trump’s prediction: Recognizing that a depression is already right around the corner, why not prepare to capitalize on the Democratic Party’s big election victory, if it happens as projected, by setting the stage now for claiming the Depression that looks likely to begin next year due to the Big Bond Bust is the Democrat’s fault. Continue reading
Bank of America this week was blasted with the third-largest fine ever levied by the U.S. Department of Treasury.
BOA’s alleged wrongdoing included failing to report $5 billion in suspicious transactions including $1 billion linked to national security risks like Chinese money laundering networks and illicit activity along the U.S.’ southwest border.
There were 475 apparent violations of U.S.-ordered sanctions against other countries such as Russia and Iran.
Apparent misdeeds by Bank of America didn’t end there. Continue reading
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
