The battle between Trump and the Democrats in the House of Representatives shows no signs of abating and is in fact getting worse. The House Ways and Means Committee issued a demand followed by a subpoena for Trump’s tax returns. The White House, Treasury and IRS all refused to provide the returns on the basis
The Fed was on a tear in 2018, raising rates four times at four quarterly FOMC meetings (out of eight total) by 0.25% each time. These rate hikes came on top of “quantitative tightening,” or QT, where the Fed burned money to reduce the M0 money supply by about $500 billion, equivalent to another 1.00%
You’ve heard about “rare earths.” These are 17 chemical elements with names including cerium, erbium, europium and other little-known metals. Certain rare earth minerals are formed from combinations of these rare earth elements. Despite the designation as rare earths, they are not actually that rare. In fact, some are quite plentiful in the Earth’s crust.
The list of international strategic hot spots keeps getting longer. There is significant potential for confrontation in North Korea, the South China Sea, the Taiwan Straits, the Gaza Strip, Venezuela, Ukraine and a long list of other unstable locales. As reported in this article, the newest addition to the list (and one that has been there
The airwaves and political channels are filled with self-congratulations on 3.2% annualized growth in the first quarter of 2019. This is touted by Trump administration officials as “proof” that the 2018 tax cuts worked and we have now returned to the days of 3%-plus self-sustaining growth. Don’t believe it. Growth in Trump’s first year (2017)
By now you’ve seen the headlines about the return of bitcoin. Bitcoin mania is back! Bitcoin rose from about $2,000 in May 2017 to $20,000 by December 2017 in one of the greatest asset price bubbles in history. Then it crashed from $20,000 to $3,300 by December 2018, an 83.5% collapse in one year and
We’ve written a lot about the powerful movement toward a so-called “cashless society.” In its pure form, cash would cease to exist in the same way that gold coins ceased to exist in 1933 and silver coins ceased to exist in 1965. Your “money in the bank” would be in digital form only, with no
The trade war was never going to be easy for China. There are several reasons for this. The easiest one boils down to third-grade math. In round numbers, the U.S. imports about $500 billion per year from China. In turn, China imports about $150 billion per year from the U.S. The difference is a $350
Bitcoin is back! So say the true believers, even with Friday’s flash crash. But there less there than meets the eye. Bitcoin has staged a notable comeback from its 2018 crash. From a level of about $4,000 through the month of March, 2019, bitcoin had a two-day 23% spike from $4,135 on April 1, 2019
My readers know that I’m a longtime critic of bitcoin. Bitcoin rose from about $2,000 in May 2017 to $20,000 by December 2017 in one of the greatest asset price bubbles in history. I argued repeatedly that it was nothing but a massive bubble and that the bubble would probably burst when it hit $20,000.
