Trump’s ‘Reciprocal’ Tariffs Aren’t Quite What They Seem. Here’s the Real Story
The massive tariffs that President Donald Trump announced for dozens of trading partners Wednesday were pitched as “reciprocal,” simply aiming to match the tariffs other countries charge the United States.

But the methodology behind Trump’s attempt to rebalance trade has nothing to do with the tariff rate that foreign countries impose on the US.

The Trump administration instead used a grossly oversimplified calculation that it said factored in a broad set of issues such as Chinese investment, alleged currency manipulation and other countries’ regulations. The administration’s calculation divided a country’s trade deficit with the US by its exports into the country times 1/2. That’s it… (Continue to full article)

More Than 50 Countries’ Approached US About Lowering Tariffs: Treasury Secretary
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent claimed Sunday that “more than 50 countries” have approached the Trump administration to bring down “non-tariff trade barriers,” reduce tariffs, and halt “currency manipulation” on their side.

“More than 50 countries have approached … the administration about lowering their non-tariff trade barriers, lowering their tariffs, stopping currency manipulation,” Bessent said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to moderator Kristen Welker. Trump defends tariffs as markets plunge: ‘I don’t want anything to go down’

“And … they’ve been bad actors for a long time… (Continue to full article)

Senate Passes Budget, Setting Up Showdown With House Over Trump Agenda
Senate Republicans voted early Saturday morning to pass a budget resolution that will be critical to advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda, but the measure breaks with House Republicans on several big issues, setting the stage for a showdown between the two chambers later this year.

The Senate voted 51-48 to pass the measure after a holding a long series of votes on amendments, which kept senators pacing around the chamber for hours.

Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Susan Collins (Maine) were the only Republican to vote against it.. (Continue to full article)

Al Green Says He’ll Present Articles of Impeachment Against Trump in Next 30 Days
Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said he will bring articles of impeachment against President Trump in the next 30 days, telling protestors at an anti-Trump rally in Washington that he does not “deserve” to hold the executive office.

“We need a Senate that will convict him this time, and I want you to know, from my heart, from my heart, I understand that he is a Goliath. He is a Goliath. He has control of the generals in the military. He has control of the Justice Department. He has control of the Republican Party, but my friends, my friends, for every Goliath, there is a David,” Green said while addressing demonstrators at D.C.’s “Hands Off!” rally on Saturday.

“And I want you to know, Mr. President, this David is going to bring articles of impeachment against you within the next 30 days. Within the next 30 days, I’m bringing articles of impeachment. I’m coming for you. Mr. President, this David is coming for you… (Continue to full article)

Senate Passes Trump Budget Framework to Begin Process of Ending Taxes on Tips, Overtime and Social Security
The Senate passed a budget framework early Saturday to begin the process of enacting President Trump’s signature campaign pledges — including his plans to cut taxes on tips, overtime pay and Social Security benefits.

The 51-48 vote unlocks the “reconciliation” process that allows legislation to pass the Senate with a bare majority rather than the typical 60-vote threshold.

The package is currently ill-defined, but its initiation was a significant win for Trump, who has called on allies to cram many of his top policy requests into “one big beautiful bill…. (Continue to full article)

Trump’s Tariffs Trigger Biggest Oil Price Drop Since 2021
Oil prices plunged this week as a one-two punch of sweeping U.S. import tariffs and an unexpected OPEC+ supply hike erased $10 per barrel from global benchmarks.

The combined effect of Donald Trump’s import tariffs, OPEC+’s inopportune decision to speed up the unwinding of production cuts and China’s retaliatory actions have wiped off $10 per barrel from global oil prices, with ICE Brent falling below $65 per barrel for the first time since August 2021. Seeing backwardation barely change compared to the beginning of the week, one could assume that US tariffs are the defining factor for the price change, nevertheless this week will not go down well in the history of oil markets… (Continue to full article)

Devaluing the US Dollar: How to Make America Poorer Again
n recent days, we have read numerous articles about a possible agreement between the US administration and its main trading partners to devalue the US dollar. It has been named “The Mar-A-Lago Accord”, a concept inspired by the Plaza Accord of 1985, which aimed to devalue the US dollar to address trade imbalances. That plan failed.

The objective, according to the financial media, would be to weaken the US dollar, boost US export competitiveness, and rebalance global trade. Another proposal involves restructuring US debt by swapping existing obligations for longer-term bonds, such as 100-year Treasury bonds, to ease fiscal pressures. However, this would be a dangerous and potentially counterproductive idea.

The Mar-A-Lago Accord concept starts from two wrong premises, which are to believe that US exports are not large enough due to a strong currency and that debt is too high because of a robust US dollar. Both are simply incorrect… (Continue to full article)

Are You Ready To Pay A 104% Tariff On All Products From China?
How many products do you have in your home right now that were made in China? If you are like most Americans, that number is very high.

We should have never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on cheap Chinese goods, but we did. Walmart, Target and our dollar stores are absolutely teeming with products that were manufactured in China, and now those products are about to get much more expensive.

The 34 percent “retaliatory tariff” that the Trump administration recently imposed on the Chinese was on top of a 20 percent tariff that the Trump administration had already imposed on them. The White House has confirmed this

Unfortunately, the 54 percent tariff that we were potentially facing will now rise to 104 percent thanks to an additional 50 percent tariff that will go into effect on April 9th… (Continue to full article)

The time has come to quit jumping all over the place and care for the American People!

Boomers Face a ‘Devastating‘ Blow to Their Life Savings as More Tariff Pain Looms
Baby boomers will soon open their IRA statements and may damage their retirement funds.

Trump’s tariffs threaten further pain, finance professor Peter Ricchiuti told Business Insider. He said tariffs are “prosperity killers” that drag down stocks and the economy.

Many people could be left disappointed when they open their IRA statements in the coming days — and Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs threaten to make things even worse. The worst part of all this is that these economic wounds are self-inflicted… (Continue to full article)

Emperor Trump

Senate Budget Would Add More to the National Debt Than Any Other in History
The U.S. Senate is poised to pass a budget that could potentially add far and away more to the national debt than any legislation in history.

Based on the details as we understand them, the estimate that this would allow twice as much additional borrowing as the House budget and double projected debt growth over the next decade and beyond to 134 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2034 and 211 percent by 2055… (Continue to full article)

Elon Musk Confirms Widespread Voter Fraud as Millions of Non-Citizens Get Access to Social Security, Medicaid, and the Ballot Box
Billionaire entrepreneur and Trump advisor Elon Musk dropped a bombshell this weekend during a fiery 100-minute town hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he campaigned for conservative judge Brad Schimel in the state’s upcoming Supreme Court election on Tuesday.

Joined by Antonio Gracias, a private equity titan and a key member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) team tasked with rooting out waste in the federal government, Musk unveiled a shocking chart: a dramatic spike in Social Security Numbers issued to non-citizens, soaring from 270,000 in 2021 to a mind-blowing 2.1 million in 2024.

That’s almost 5 million non-citizens now embedded in the system—collecting benefits, draining taxpayer dollars, and, most alarmingly, infiltrating the voter rolls… (Continue to full article)

DOGE’s Changes To Medicare And Social Security Will Hurt The Elderly And Those Who Care For Them
The tech industry has long had an obsession with youth. This is seen in how the industry conducts itself, who investors look to invest in, how people look at hiring in the world of startups, as well as which programs are being targeted by DOGE, and which ones aren’t, as they look to make the government more efficient. Over the last few months, the Department of Government Efficiency has aggressively looked for waste and fraud within the federal government.

It started with organizations that do not come to mind for the average American, like the United States Agency For International Development, or USAID, which focuses on deploying aid to foreign countries for a variety of efforts centered around health, disaster aid, and economic development.

DOGE came in like a wrecking ball to the organization, and as reported by ABC News in February, 4,080 employees worldwide were placed on leave and an additional 1,600 people were laid off… (Continue to full article)

‘There’s a War on Vets’: Dems Launch Plans to Counter Trump’s VA Moves
Angry over planned cuts at Veterans Affairs facilities and a lack of communication from department leaders about those moves, congressional Democrats are plotting confirmation holds , legislative obstruction and unofficial hearings in an attempt to create public outrage over the administration’s changes to veterans programs and benefits.

President Trump has already fired more veterans than any president in the history of the United States … and they have already told the country that [VA leaders] are going to lay off another 80,000 people at the VA… (Continue to full article)

Boom! Trump’s “Higher Than Expected” Tariffs Will Be An Epic Shock To Our Standard Of Living And To The Global Economy As A Whole
The global trade war is officially heating up. President Trump just unveiled a series of tariffs that were higher than expected, and business leaders all over the world are absolutely stunned.

For many of those that have made a killing importing goods into the United States, their businesses have now been ruined. For many of those that manufacture their goods right here in the United States, President Trump’s tariffs are very welcome news. The tariffs that Trump has just announced will go into effect right away, and stock futures are plunging as I write this article.

During the economic chaos that is ahead, there will be winners and there will be losers, but without a doubt, the global trade war that has now fully erupted will certainly be an enormous shock to the global economy…. (Continue to full article)

How Many Millions Of People Are Fraudulently Receiving Social Security Checks, And Why Is The Left Throwing A Massive Temper Tantrum About Revelations Of Fraud?
One of the biggest scandals in the history of our government is starting to be revealed, and the implications are enormous. According to the Social Security Administration more than 71 million Americans are receiving Social Security checks, and according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services more than 68 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare.

But the most recent census conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau found that there were only 55.8 million people that were age 65 or older living in the United States in 2020. Obviously, there is something seriously wrong with these numbers.

We should be so glad that Elon Musk and his team are looking for fraud in the system, because it appears that we are being ripped off on a massive scale…. (Continue to full article)

Trump Set to Whack US Working Class With Historic $2,000 Tax Hike

da Fingah

There is an old saying in Washington that if you want to understand politicians, look at what they do, not what they say. On that front there is no ambiguity. The Republican president is imposing big new taxes, and he is doing it in a way that does not require congressional approval.

The waiting is almost over, Donald Trump is about to hit America’s workers with the largest tax increase they have ever seen. Trump’s taxes on imports (tariffs) from Canada, Mexico, and China will cost people in the United States somewhere around $260 billion a year or around $2,000 a household… (Continue to full article)

…and the Beat goes on…

July 9, 2018 ~ Traditionally, inflation has been defined as “an increase in the amount of currency in circulation.” Such an increase almost always causes an increase in the cost of goods and services, since, more plentiful currency units lowers their rarity, as compared to the supply of goods and services, which remains roughly the same. Therefore, it shouldn’t be surprising if a 20% increase in the amount of currency units translates into a 20% increase in the price of goods and services.

Unfortunately, in recent decades, even dictionaries have been offering a revised definition of inflation, as “an increase in the price of goods and services.” This is a pity, as it makes an already confusing subject even more difficult to understand. Continue reading →

The Economic Engine Of Democrats
I am a political junkie and a political conservative. Like so many conservative political junkies, I spend a good portion of my waking hours trying to understand what the words and actions of Democrats actually mean.

Like the Politburo of the former Soviet Union, the words of Democrats often bear little resemblance to the actions their words embody. “Equity” is an excellent example, as when Democrats say “equity,” they really mean highly inequitable policy solutions. Sometimes, however, Democrats deliberately fail to coherently describe the meaning of their actions, and then it becomes even harder to ascertain meaning.

Such is the case with the basic economic policies of Democrats. Many on the right like to say that Democrats support socialism, but that’s not wholly true given how many capitalist components exist inside Democrat economic policies… (Continue to full article)

Status of US Dollar as Global Reserve Currency: Central Banks Diversify into Other Currencies and Gold
The status of the US dollar as the dominant global reserve currency has helped the US fund its twin deficits, and thereby has enabled them: the huge fiscal deficit every year and the massive trade deficit every year. The reserve currency status comes from other central banks (not the Fed) having purchased trillions of USD-denominated assets such as Treasury securities, other government securities, corporate bonds, and even stocks. The dollar status as the dominant reserve currency has been crucial for the US, and as that dominance declines ever so slowly, risks pile up ever so slowly.

The US dollar lost further ground as top global reserve currency in 2024, according to the IMF’s COFER data released today. Total holdings of USD-denominated securities by other central banks (not the Fed) fell by $59 billion to $6.63 trillion at the end of 2024, from $6.69 trillion at the end of 2023.

And the dollar’s share declined to 57.8% of total allocated exchange reserves at the end of 2024, the lowest since 1994, down by 7.3 percentage points in 10 years, as central banks have been diversifying their holdings for years to assets denominated in currencies other than the dollar, and into gold… (Continue to full article)

Silver Market Update – Upside Slingshot Move In Prospect…
Silver has made modest and hesitant gains compared to gold in the recent past. There are two reasons for this. One is that, unlike gold which is at clear new highs, silver is still working its way through considerable overhanging supply which exists all the way up to its 2011 highs at $50. The other is that there is still very little speculative interest in the Precious Metals as made clear by the silver-to-gold ratio that we will look at lower down the page which means that this new sector bull market is still in its infancy.

the giant Bowl boundary, which is now rising steeply, is coming into play and strictly limiting the downside and looks set to slingshot silver higher soon… (Continue to full article)

Gold sails above $3,100 to uncharted territory as US tariffs approach
Gold prices soared to record levels above $3,100 per ounce in a rally marking one of the most significant upswings in the precious metal’s history, with psychological levels swept aside by a cocktail of factors – including worry about fallout from impending U.S. tariffs.

Spot gold hit a record of $3,124.07 per ounce on Monday.

Uncertainty surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs added extra heat to the momentum pushing gold higher, including strong demand from central banks, expectations of interest rate easing by the Federal Reserve, geopolitical instability in the Middle East and Europe, and increased flows into gold-backed exchange traded funds… (Continue to full article)

Morgan Stanley, Citi and Goldman Sachs all grow more bullish on gold as prices pierce $3,100
Investment banking giants Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs have all shared updated gold price projections for 2025 and beyond as the yellow metal’s bull run shows no sign of slowing, even as new tailwinds emerge to support today’s all-time high prices.
Amy Gower, metals and mining commodity strategist at Morgan Stanley, told Bloomberg on Monday morning that gold’s move to new all-time highs has been building for quite a long time, and every time analysts predict a peak, it posts further gains.
“I think that’s because there’s two different stories driving gold here,” she said. “One is the physical demand that really started to shift in 2022 when we saw central banks buying a lot more gold… (Continue to full article)

Trump Tariffs Gone Wild
The U.S. stock market’s recent zigs and zags have triggered considerable excitement. Wall Street pros, private money managers, and Millennial index fund enthusiasts have all been whipsawed by the market’s swift up and down movements. No one can seem to stay ahead of President Trump’s ‘make it up as you go’ tariff games.

Trump clarified the rules of the game to reporters in the Oval Office on March 21. Specifically, he intends to be flexible on tariffs when it is to the advantage of American companies…. (Continue to full article)

55 Ways That Everything That You Think That You Own Is Being Systematically Taken Away From You
The entire system has been designed to generate as much revenue from your activity as possible until someday you eventually drop dead. It is tax season, and that means that it is time to feed the largest and most bloated government in the history of the entire planet once again.

Of course the federal income tax is just one of the ways that they are systematically draining your wealth. As you will see below, there are literally dozens of taxes that Americans must pay each year.

Many of our politicians seem to revel in inventing ways to extract money out of us, and that needs to stop… (Continue to full article)