During a conference call with investors last week, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon made a memorable response to a question from Wells Fargo analyst Mike Mayo about the collapse of a subprime auto lender called Tricolor that cost the bank $170 million. Tricolor went bankrupt due to allegations of fraud, including […]
When we use the phrase cracking up, we don’t mean an immediate and catastrophic collapse. Instead, we refer to a breakdown in the political, economic and geopolitical spheres that imply a severe weakening in the power of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and perhaps even the fall of the CCP […]
Whatever happened to the Donald Trump and Elon Musk visit to Fort Knox? You’ll recall the buzz from earlier this year. Trump and Musk loudly announced they were going to visit the U.S. bullion depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky to make sure the U.S. gold was actually there. The press […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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% […]
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, […]
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 […]