President Abraham Lincoln is considered to be the moral savior of the United States for ending slavery. To pay for the war, he made enormous changes in the basic relationship between the federal government and money. These changes greatly diminished individual property rights and increased the power of Washington over the private economy. The paper […]
When I write collapse, I’m not referring just to a financial meltdown. I’m referring to a broad-based social collapse that could call into question the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which some historians refer to as the Peasant Dynasty. In order to understand the vulnerability of China, it helps to consider the counter-narrative […]
With so much attention focused on U.S. stock markets, it seems timely to pivot away from stocks for the moment and consider the global perspective. Globalization may be dying in terms of trade and supply chains, but financial markets are inextricably linked in ways that relatively few understand. King Dollar Still Rules The dollar still […]
What is the Mar-a-Lago Accord? And what would a Mar-a-Lago Accord mean for the value of the U.S. dollar? We begin our analysis with the name itself. Mar-a-Lago Accord is an echo of the three major international currency accords since the original Bretton Woods Agreements reached in 1944. Accords Through The Years The first was […]
On Monday, we offered readers the following forecast of what would happen at the FOMC meeting this week: On Wednesday, the Fed will continue its pause in interest rate cuts. That decision will leave the federal funds target unchanged at 4.50%. The Fed’s current rate lowering cycle began with a 0.50% rate cut on September 18, […]
The stock market has topped out and is headed down. The Dow Jones Industrial Average peaked at 45,014 on December 4, 2024, and was at 41,911 by March 10, 2025, down 3,101 points or 6.9% in just over three months. The S&P 500 Index peaked at 6,130 on February 18, 2025, and was at 5,614 […]
Even casual observers know that gold has been trading near all-time highs lately. The dollar price of gold has been trading around $2,955 per ounce, quite close to the all-time closing high and near the recent intraday high just below $3,000 per ounce. Since November 1, 2022, gold has rallied from $1,650 per ounce to […]
It’s game on for the trade wars. After months of threatening tariffs on U.S. trading partners during his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump has now taken definitive action on that front. On Saturday, February 1, Trump announced that the U.S. was imposing 25% tariffs on all goods imported to the U.S. from Mexico and Canada (with […]
The new Trump administration is off to a fast start. All of the key nominations for the Trump cabinet and White House staff have been made, the Senate confirmation hearings (where needed) have mostly been held and some of the key positions have already been filled. Trump signed a large pile of Day One executive […]
The new Trump administration is off to a fast start. All of the key nominations for the Trump cabinet and White House staff have been made, the Senate confirmation hearings (where needed) have mostly been held and some of the key positions have already been filled. Trump signed a large pile of Day One executive […]