Low crop prices, high input costs could hurt corn and soybean farmers
Zac Soltvedt explains how he calculates the amount of corn in a field Friday, Sept. 19, 2025, in Seymour, Wis. Angela Major/WPR
Farmers — a key voting bloc that helped propel President Donald Trump back to the White House in the 2024 election — are struggling.
In the past three months, US farm bankruptcies have surged to 93 filings, more than double the same quarter last year.
Soybean producers have been hit the hardest, largely due to the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing.
For years, American soybean farmers shipped nearly a quarter of their $60billion crop to China.
But Beijing responded to Trump’s tariffs with 20 percent levies of its own, making US products uncompetitive.
Imports from America have plunged to nearly zero, with Chinese buyers turning instead to Argentina and Brazil.
Farmers who planted months in advance to meet Chinese demand are now forced to foot the bill. In Illinois, soybean growers expect to lose about $64 an acre this year.
To keep more farms from going under, Trump is weighing $10 billion to $14 billion in bailout funds… (Continue to full article)
I am deeply saddened by what is happening to our country. America is reaching a boiling point, and it appears that we have entered a new era of civil unrest in which political violence will become the norm. At this moment in our history, we should all be denouncing political violence as loudly as we can. Unfortunately, there are many voices that are loudly calling for more political violence. I have been warning that this time would come for so many years, and now it is here.
The U.S. economy added 911,000 fewer jobs over the 12 months ending in March than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) initially reported, according to data released by the besieged agency Tuesday.
When I was growing up, it was assumed that pretty much everyone in my generation would be able to achieve the American Dream. But today most of the U.S. population is not living the American Dream, and more people are falling out of the middle class every day. As I have detailed in previous articles, this is particularly true for Millennials and those in Generation Z. The collective prosperity of the middle class has been declining for an extended period of time, and now that long-term decline threatens to become a full-blown avalanche. 
Emerging-market central banks have been active buyers since the freezing of Russian reserves in 2022 underscored the vulnerability of foreign-exchange holdings.
Gold has always held a unique place in human history, symbolizing wealth, security, and power. Even today, investors and everyday people remain fascinated by it, often rushing to buy when markets feel uncertain. Yet gold is not immune to volatility, and at times it loses value, leaving many to wonder why the obsession persists. The reasons are rooted in psychology, history, and cultural perceptions that go far beyond simple price charts. To understand why do people obsess over gold, you have to look at the mix of fear, tradition, and trust that surrounds it. 
While not obvious, it is amazing, and a bit concerning, how great an impact monetary policy has on our lives. Decisions that an “independent” Federal Reserve makes have profound implications for future generations. Monetary policy decides the fate of our economic well-being, good or bad.
I kept warning about what would happen to our economy if we stayed on the path that we were on. For decades, our leaders have been making unbelievably bad decisions, and now the consequences are really starting to catch up with us. The cost of living has become incredibly painful, a larger housing bubble than the one that we faced just prior to the Great Recession is beginning to burst, and large companies are conducting mass layoffs all over the country.
