<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />From Bonds to Bars
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Gold's star is rising as a potential safe-haven replacement for Treasury bonds in investors' portfolios, according to a recent Bank of America note. 
The precious metal has been on a remarkable run, surging over 30% this year and reaching $2,707 an ounce on Thursday.
Several factors have fueled gold's ascent: <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/this-is-no-ordinary-gold-rally">central bank purchases,</a> falling interest rates and emerging interest from U.S. retail investors.
(Even Costco shoppers, as we&rsquo;ve mentioned from time to time, are getting in on the action, <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/costco-gold-and-biden-bucks">snapping up gold bars</a> alongside their two-liter bottles of olive oil.)
Now, Bank of America commodity strategist Michael Widmer suggests that mounting concerns over U.S. debt levels could be a key driver of gold's price surge.
With the presidential election just 18 days away, neither candidate seems to have a solid plan to address the nation's ballooning debt.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> And it's not just Uncle Sam who's swimming in a sea of red&hellip; 
Widmer notes: &ldquo;Spending commitments are likely to rise, as countries adapt to and tackle climate change, demographics become more challenging and defense spending likely goes up too.&rdquo;
[More on tackling climate change in a moment.]
This global borrowing binge could make investors wary of sovereign debt, including Treasury bonds, potentially boosting gold's appeal.
&ldquo;With lingering concerns over U.S. funding needs and their impact on the U.S. Treasury market, the yellow metal may become the ultimate perceived safe-haven asset,&rdquo; says Widmer.
He's sticking to his guns with a $3,000 price target for gold. (As we mentioned yesterday, in January, Paradigm&rsquo;s own Zach Scheidt predicted $3,000 gold by the end of 2024.)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Comparing gold and Treasury bonds reveals some interesting contrasts. While Treasury bonds offer guaranteed returns and TIPS provide built-in inflation protection, gold's allure lies in its potential as a hedge against currency devaluation and economic uncertainty.
In one sense, gold's storage complexity can be a drawback. On the other hand? Well, it&rsquo;s worth repeating: &ldquo;Gold is a physical non-digital asset that cannot be stolen, frozen or seized provided it is in safe storage,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s macro expert Jim Rickards.
Plus, gold&rsquo;s performance during times of crisis is impressive. Following the 2008 financial meltdown, for instance, gold prices skyrocketed nearly 24% in 2009 alone.
And since the current (unconventional) gold bull market started two years ago? Gold is up 66% as of Oct. 24, 2022. At the same time&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Recession signs are real and growing worse,&rdquo; Jim says, including tight credit conditions and yo-yoing jobless claims.
&ldquo;The world is searching for a safe haven away from government-induced inflation (fiscal policy) or central bank-induced inflation (monetary policy),&rdquo; he adds.
&ldquo;Treasury notes and gold are both high-quality assets that compete for investor allocations,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;Gold does not have a yield (although it can produce significant capital gains).
&ldquo;When yields on Treasuries drop, the zero yield on gold is relatively more attractive compared with the note yield, and gold prices start to rally.&rdquo;
This just in&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7gbvK3TpamDuP0h0rmIkuD/f3b744274edeee82b41f6ca5406c0c7e/Jim-Tweet.png" alt="jim tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;If the yield to maturity on the 10-year Treasury note were to drop,&rdquo; &mdash; and the yield at 4.07% today is down 0.85% year-over-year &mdash; &ldquo;gold could continue its upward trend to $3,000 per ounce or much higher,&rdquo; Jim concludes.

[Note: Jim Rickards just leaked this live footage below from one of America&rsquo;s secret gold locations&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2OhuEioclVEhFB0OIyDHk9/f921c654cb3e5f03a8141caaed6fe435/rgf-gold-mine-img.gif" alt="gold mine" width="450px" />
What Jim found inside is leading him to make a bold statement: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t buy another ounce of gold until you see what came out of here.&rdquo;
And it&rsquo;s led to Jim green-lighting a $1 million investment that he&rsquo;ll tell you more about in <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2368952">this on-location report&hellip;</a>
Plus, he&rsquo;ll reveal a unique investment vehicle that can return 10X, 50X, even 100X your money in the coming years.
But this window of opportunity will not stay open for long. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2368952">Click here now to see what Jim Rickards found in this secret location.</a>]

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />A Resurrection: &ldquo;Three Months in the Making&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;The S&amp;P 500 and Papa Dow are grinding toward their highest weekly closes in history,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s chart hound Greg Guenthner.
In fact, taking a look at our screens, the S&amp;P 500 has gained 0.30% to 5,860 while the Big Board sits at 43,240.
&ldquo;Participation beneath the surface is expanding. And speculative areas of the market are heating up,&rdquo; Greg continues. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s classic bull market behavior. In fact, a market melt-up could be in the works.&rdquo;
About that Nasdaq sell-off earlier this week: &ldquo;I think we can all agree the Nasdaq was due for a breather,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Remember, price doesn&rsquo;t move in a straight line. It expands and contracts through a series of rallies and corrections.
&ldquo;Perhaps the correction will last a few days or even a few weeks. Both would be fine as the uptrend remains intact, and the rest of the market screams buy.&rdquo;
The Nasdaq today? Up 0.60% to 18,480.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;It feels like a lifetime since the small-cap Russell 2000 jumped more than 10% in just five trading days,&rdquo; Greg notes.
&ldquo;But everything changed this week as we were treated to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/a-small-caps-resurrection">a breakout nearly three months in the making&hellip;</a>
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6ns4zvaExHiiJwKsUWb4GK/795843de83fd73a58beba87c9df9f970/Russell2000.png" alt="Russell 2000" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The Russell 2000&rdquo; &mdash; represented by the iShares Russell 2000 ETF (IWM) &mdash; &ldquo;just posted its highest close since 2021,&rdquo; Greg says.
&ldquo;Are you paying attention yet? Small caps are breaking out into thin air just as we&rsquo;re entering melt-up season.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been a rough ride,&rdquo; says Greg. &ldquo;But I have a feeling an extended move higher will reward patient traders into 2025.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Here Come Rolling Blackouts?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The Supreme Court's recent decision to allow the EPA's new emissions limits for power plants has sparked concern about the potential strain on the U.S. electrical grid.
The ruling, which rebuffs businesses and Republican-led states, gives Team Biden a green light to enforce stringent regulations on an industry allegedly responsible for a quarter of the country's greenhouse gas emissions.
Critics argue these new rules could force power plants to close prematurely, potentially threatening the reliability of the electrical grid &mdash; at a time when demand is surging due to AI, data centers and electric vehicles.
The Edison Electric Institute, representing investor-owned utilities, expressed disappointment with the Supreme Court&rsquo;s decision&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;While EEI's member electric companies are investing in <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2023/05/25/natural-gas-gets-blacklisted/">carbon capture</a> and storage and are excited by its potential, the current reality is that this technology has yet to be adequately demonstrated as required by the Clean Air Act.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
On the other hand, environmentalists are celebrating. Meredith Hankins, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council, calls SCOTUS&rsquo; decision &ldquo;a victory for common sense.&rdquo;
She brushes off &ldquo;power producers&rdquo; who &ldquo;don't need immediate relief from modest standards that kick in eight years from now, and states have plenty of time to begin their planning process."
Well&hellip; 
Serious questions remain about how the power industry will adapt to new regulations. And whether the electrical grid can withstand the potential closures of fossil fuel plants while simultaneously meeting increasing energy demands.
Yeah&hellip; <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2023/02/13/americas-third-world-electric-grid/">South African-level load shedding, anyone?</a>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Not Just for Celebrities Anymore
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Klarna's digital companion promises to revolutionize shopping, bringing the personal shopper experience to the masses,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s AI expert James Altucher.
Developed with OpenAI, this chat-based tool helps users search products, compare options and receive tailored recommendations. It can discuss style preferences and even assist in gift-finding.
David Fock, Klarna's chief product officer, says: &ldquo;For decades, the tech industry assumed that the online shopping experience was tied up by a small number of massive tech players, which led to underinvestment.
&ldquo;That's created an opportunity for companies like Klarna, and we are enlisting AI to challenge the incumbents,&rdquo; he says.
Other e-commerce giants, including Amazon with Rufus AI, are developing similar technologies to offer expert advice and personalized recommendations 24/7.
For retailers, these AI tools can increase sales, follow up on abandoned carts and gather customer insights while enhancing customer loyalty and engagement.
&ldquo;For investors exploring retail opportunities, the key will be identifying companies that not only adopt this technology but innovate with it,&rdquo; James adds.
&ldquo;The real winners will be those who use AI to create truly personalized, engaging shopping experiences.&rdquo; Stay tuned for the best ways to capitalize on this AI-retail trend&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />A Wick-ed Bad Design Blunder
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Ah, Bath &amp; Body Works &mdash; mall mainstay and purveyor of scented soaps, lotions and candles &mdash; has stirred a commotion just in time for the holiday-shopping season. 
&ldquo;Every year, the retailer rolls out its collection of holiday-scented candles that amount to nearly 40% of its annual sales,&rdquo; says CNN.
But their latest offering, the &ldquo;Snowed In&rdquo; candle, missed the mark badly on winter whimsy and landed squarely in Klan territory&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/340rwQhqEW9O4HXUW5g6FX/87b805e7574a09a59d1bc803546b1d6d/candle.png" alt="candle" width="300px" />

Source: Bath &amp; Body Works Inc. Who knew a paper snowflake could cause such a kerfuffle?
Social media sleuths quickly pointed out the uncanny resemblance to certain pointy-headed hate mongers. Cue the birth of catchy monikers like &ldquo;klandle&rdquo; and &ldquo;Klan Krismas Kandle.&rdquo;
Bath &amp; Body Works, realizing they'd stepped in a steaming pile of controversy, swiftly pulled the plug on the candle. Their apology? A masterclass in corporate hand-wringing: &ldquo;We are committed to fixing any mistakes we make &mdash; even those that are unintentional like this one.&rdquo;
But for collectors of questionable memorabilia, the &ldquo;klandle" has found a new home on sites like eBay and Mercari, where enterprising individuals are hawking it for a mere $600.
Because nothing says &ldquo;I have more money than sense&rdquo; quite like overpaying for a candle with a problematic design.
One can almost smell the PR team&rsquo;s flop sweats from here&hellip;
On that funky note, enjoy the weekend!
And for more gold goodness, check out Saturday&rsquo;s issue&hellip;
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Paradigm Pressroom&rsquo;s 5 Bullets
P.S. As for precious metals today, they&rsquo;re bounding up in spectacular fashion. Gold&rsquo;s up another $25 per ounce to $2,732.90 per ounce. At the same time, silver is on a tear &mdash; up 3.85% to a shade under $33.
Meanwhile, the price of crude is down over 1%, now below $70 for a barrel of WTI.
The crypto market, however, is getting some love. Bitcoin is up about 3% to $68,830 and Ethereum is up 2% to $2,645.

shutterstock 2229103095

5-bullet-placeholder

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

Gold's star is rising as a potential safe-haven replacement for Treasury bonds in investors' portfolios, according to a recent Bank of America note. 

Gold Outshines Government IOUs

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />They&rsquo;re Still Stacking Gold
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The gold rally of 2022&ndash;24 has been a strange one, for sure.
By and large, everyday retail investors have missed out.
The World Gold Council tracks inflows and outflows to gold ETFs like GLD &mdash; the main vehicle through which Joe Average gets exposure to precious metals.
Only since May has investor money been flowing into the gold ETFs. Before that, money had been flowing out for three straight years &mdash; even as gold rallied from $1,800 to over $2,350.
So what drove the rally if mom-and-pops weren&rsquo;t buying?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> We can&rsquo;t underscore this phenomenon often enough: It&rsquo;s central banks around the world that are loading up on gold and driving the price higher.
The World Gold Council also tracks gold buying and selling among central banks. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, central banks around the world steadily emptied their vaults. But in 2009, central banks became net buyers of gold.
The buying proceeded at a measured pace until 2022 &mdash; when it went off the charts. 2023&rsquo;s buying was nearly as furious. And if the buying during the first half of this year continues, 2024 will nearly equal 2023&rsquo;s levels.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6wVkgvm3kBkHdd72WD8V5h/2192de5756e57e18dc0693015ea3361f/FMF_5Bullets_Chart_Bars.png" alt="off the charts" width="540px" />
We also can&rsquo;t underscore the reasons behind this phenomenon often enough. The fact the buying frenzy started in 2022 was no random occurrence.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, Washington froze $300 billion in dollar-based assets held by the Central Bank of Russia. All of a sudden, supposedly &ldquo;safe&rdquo; assets like U.S. Treasuries looked very risky indeed.
Even U.S.-friendly governments are wary of Washington&rsquo;s financial jackboot: &ldquo;The international reach of U.S. sanctions makes the U.S. the economic policeman of the planet,&rdquo; said the French finance minister in 2018, &ldquo;and that is not acceptable.&rdquo;
In that context, gold serves as a unique safety valve. As Paradigm macroeconomics authority Jim Rickards keeps emphasizing, &ldquo;Gold is a physical non-digital asset that cannot be stolen, frozen or seized provided it is in safe storage.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Central Bankers Make Rare Comments in Favor of Bigger Gold Stash,&rdquo; says a Bloomberg headline from Monday.
The London Bullion Market Association hosted an annual confab this week in Miami. On hand are three central bankers who delivered unusually candid remarks about central bank gold accumulation.
Said an official from the Banco de Mexico: &ldquo;Given the context that we are facing right now &mdash; lower rates, your political tension, U.S. election, a lot of uncertainty &mdash; maybe the share of gold in our portfolios could be increasing as well.&rdquo;
Chimed in an executive from the Central Bank of Mongolia: &ldquo;In Mongolia&rsquo;s case, I expect that the reserves will continue to grow, and I also expect that the share of gold in our reserves will likely increase in the future.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I completely agree as well,&rdquo; said a leader of the Czech National Bank.
Maybe these central bankers didn&rsquo;t realize that reporters from Bloomberg and Reuters were in the room. Or maybe they did &mdash; and they wanted to send a subtle message that they&rsquo;ll keep loading up on gold as long as they don&rsquo;t think the &ldquo;economic policeman of the planet&rdquo; can be trusted.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Gold has held the line on $2,600 for four weeks now &mdash; a healthy consolidation after a furious run-up from $2,400 in the previous four weeks.
The fact gold is approaching record levels this morning at $2,686 despite a monster rally in the U.S. dollar is setting the table for a big year-end run.
Our Zach Scheidt&rsquo;s forecast of $3,000 gold at year-end looked fanciful in January when the Midas metal was still under $2,000 &mdash; but now that target looks totally achievable.

[Limited-time opportunity: While 99% of investors try to profit from gold using bullion, gold coins or plain-old gold ETFs&hellip; Jim Rickards is saying do NOT buy another ounce of gold... or another share of a gold ETF&hellip; <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2368527">until you watch this message</a>.
Jim&rsquo;s just uncovered something huge in one of America&rsquo;s most barren land masses &mdash; and it&rsquo;s prodding him to make a major update to his gold thesis starting today. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2368527">Click here to see Jim&rsquo;s urgent report from the field</a>.]

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />So Much for the Semi Sell-Off
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The freakout over semiconductor stocks lasted exactly two days.
As you&rsquo;ll recall from yesterday&rsquo;s edition, chip stocks took a totally unwarranted dump on Tuesday when the big Dutch chipmaker ASML issued disappointing quarterly numbers and a dour outlook going into 2025.
Nearly every chip stock took a hit &mdash; even AI darling Nvidia, even though ASML&rsquo;s report acknowledged that &ldquo;there continue to be strong developments and upside potential in AI.&rdquo;
Nonetheless, the waves of fear reverberated throughout the tech sector both Tuesday and yesterday.
Well, that was then and this is now: &ldquo;Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. raised its target for 2024 revenue growth after quarterly results beat estimates,&rdquo; says Bloomberg, &ldquo;allaying concerns about global chip demand and the sustainability of an AI hardware boom.&rdquo;
Key point: TSMC is a major customer of ASML, the company that started the whole downdraft on Tuesday.
TSMC shares are up 12.6% at last check. Nvidia, meanwhile, is up 2.8% to record levels &mdash; more than erasing Tuesday&rsquo;s sell-off.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As for the major stock averages, they&rsquo;re all up a quarter-percent or better on the day. At 5,859 the S&amp;P 500 equals its record close on Monday.
In the commodity complex, we mentioned how gold is flirting with record highs. Silver, meanwhile, is flat at $31.66. Silver just can&rsquo;t catch fire the same way as gold and neither can the gold stocks &mdash; at least right now. Crude is flat, a little over $70, after the Energy Department released the weekly inventory numbers.
Bitcoin is catching its breath after its latest runup, trading a little below $67,000. Here&rsquo;s some more Bitcoin chart porn in addition to what we shared <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/an-out-of-nowhere-crypto-rally">on Tuesday</a>&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5hvjKhnyPk02FBshcXnNY8/3c443dffa9ce9ab35dbea457577d2738/CryptoRover.png" alt="crypto rover" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Loose Change: Economic Numbers, SpaceX Sues
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The big economic numbers of the day are a mixed bag&hellip;
Retail sales jumped 0.4% in September, better than expected. If you factor out auto sales (they&rsquo;re volatile month-to-month) and gasoline sales (lower prices translate to lower sales) the jump is an even stronger 0.7%.
However&hellip; over time these figures can become distorted because they don&rsquo;t factor in inflation. Once you do that, you see retail sales have oscillated in a range since early 2021 &mdash; essentially going nowhere.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3DCXSlfJdihvLbaC0sX9oq/42fcbcb2c0e05654f22ad218505ea92e/FMF_5Bullets_Chart_1017.png" alt="less than meets the eye" width="540px" />
Meanwhile, industrial production took a 0.3% tumble in September &mdash; and August&rsquo;s increase was revised down. All told, 77.5% of America&rsquo;s industrial capacity was in use during September &mdash; the weakest figure since January.
Some of that can be blamed on Hurricanes Helene and Milton but the fact remains that this &ldquo;capacity utilization&rdquo; figure is still mired beneath the long-term average going back to 1972.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> A follow-up <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/spacexs-excellent-timing#2">from Monday</a>: SpaceX is suing the California Coastal Commission.
That&rsquo;s the regulatory body that rejected SpaceX&rsquo;s request for more rocket launches not because of the environmental impact but because commissioners frown on some of Elon Musk&rsquo;s social media commentary.
&ldquo;Rarely has a government agency made so clear that it was exceeding its authorized mandate to punish a company for the political views and statements of its largest shareholder and CEO,&rdquo; says the company in its 284-page suit.
We think Musk is by and large <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/elon-musk-cant-win">a free-speech phony</a>&hellip; but in this instance, he&rsquo;s not wrong.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />As if Anyone Reads the Terms of Service&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Add Uber to the list of companies hiding behind their terms of service to evade litigation.
In August we chronicled how Disney tried to block a wrongful death lawsuit involving an incident at Disney World on the grounds that several years earlier, the deceased woman&rsquo;s husband had waived his right to sue the company&hellip; when he signed up for a Disney+ streaming subscription.
In that instance, Disney realized it was a bad look and agreed to let the case proceed in court.
Now comes the story of a couple from New Jersey &mdash; Georgia and John McGinty &mdash; who were seriously injured in 2022 when their Uber ride crashed. State judges turned away the couple&rsquo;s lawsuit on the grounds that they&rsquo;d waived their rights to sue when clicking on the Uber app&rsquo;s &ldquo;confirm&rdquo; button.
According to the BBC, &ldquo;The most recent time the terms were agreed to was when their daughter, then 12, had accepted them prior to ordering a pizza on Uber Eats.&rdquo;
Wonders Mrs. McGinty, &ldquo;How would I ever remotely think that my ability to protect my constitutional rights to a trial would be waived by me ordering food?"
Because the court sided with Uber, Uber issued a statement thus: "Our Terms of Use are clear that these types of claims should be resolved in arbitration. It&rsquo;s important to highlight that the court concluded the plaintiff herself, not her daughter, agreed to Uber's Terms of Use on multiple occasions."
Ouch. Something to think about the next time you sign up for anything and encounter a wordy pop-up screen&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Small Modular Reactors and &ldquo;Long Boring Videos&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;For what it&rsquo;s worth, small modular reactors are not as cutting edge as folks might imagine,&rdquo; a reader writes after yesterday&rsquo;s edition.
&ldquo;&lsquo;Wyoming was home to the first portable land-based nuclear power plant in the United States <a href="https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/08/23/wyoming-had-first-us-portable-nuclear-reactor-to-keep-america-safe-from-commies/">from 1962</a>&ndash;<a href="https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/08/23/wyoming-had-first-us-portable-nuclear-reactor-to-keep-america-safe-from-commies/">1968</a>,&rsquo; writes Cowboy State Daily. It was transported by air to Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota, and built below Warren Peak near Sundance, Wyoming.
&ldquo;&lsquo;It provided 1.25 megawatts of power for three large radar domes at the now-defunct Sundance Air Force Station.&rsquo;&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I wonder if anyone is looking at using thorium instead of uranium?&rdquo; another inquires.
&ldquo;Reference a book SuperFuel: Thorium, The Green Energy Source for the Future by Richard Martin, Palgrave MacMillan, 2012.
&ldquo;Keep up the good reporting!&rdquo;
Dave responds: Alas, our energy expert Byron King is on the road today, so I can&rsquo;t hit him up for an instant answer.
I&rsquo;m well aware thorium has its advocates &mdash; and to the best of my limited knowledge the main reason it never took off is that, well, unlike uranium it can&rsquo;t be turned into a weapon.
But that doesn&rsquo;t address the question of why it wouldn&rsquo;t be feasible now. We&rsquo;ll aim to follow up next week.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;You mentioned packetized media <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/rickards-and-altucher-agree-on-this-prediction">yesterday</a> and cited John Robb saying people &lsquo;scan torrential information flows instead of reading or watching long-form books and broadcasts to uncover new, novel or interesting information.&rsquo;
&ldquo;I agree. This would invalidate Paradigm Press's approach to the long videos to hawk a new service or to convey information. Personally, I will not watch the videos because I don't have an hour and they don't allow me to scan.
&ldquo;Paradigm Press should reconsider its approach to videos.
&ldquo;I always read your column and it takes precedence to all the others.&rdquo;
Dave: If you saw this week&rsquo;s edition of the Paradigm Press Concierge email, our executive publisher Matt Insley asked the pointed question, &ldquo;How is Paradigm Press failing you?&rdquo;
I don&rsquo;t want to steal Matt&rsquo;s thunder ahead of next week&rsquo;s Concierge Weekly&hellip; but as long as you brought it up, many of the replies were along the lines of your own critique.
We&rsquo;re already doing some small tweaks to make the experience a little less exasperating &mdash; and we&rsquo;re considering other bigger steps as well.
For the longest time, A/B testing has demonstrated that longer copy generates more sales than shorter copy: &ldquo;The more you tell, the more you sell.&rdquo; But we&rsquo;re always mindful that that can change &mdash; and maybe the onset of Robb&rsquo;s &ldquo;packetized media&rdquo; is the turning point.
And yes, we&rsquo;re always going to be selling something. As I&rsquo;ve said <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/who-we-are-and-what-were-all-about">more than once</a>, that&rsquo;s the only way we stay in business and retain our editorial independence at the same time.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 72594433

The gold rally of 2022–24 has been a strange one, for sure… 

This Is No Ordinary Gold Rally 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" /> Pennsylvania, the Pollsters&hellip; and an Altucher Election Call
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />What a difference 12 years makes.
Back in 2012, Paradigm&rsquo;s AI-and-crypto authority James Altucher penned a not-entirely facetious proposal to abolish the office of president of the United States.
&ldquo;I think the institution of the presidency has largely ruined my life and the lives of most other people,&rdquo; he said.
Despite that assessment &mdash; or maybe because of it? &mdash; James launched his own candidacy for the 2024 election cycle.
&ldquo;I went to the website for the Federal Election Commission,&rdquo; he wrote in a 2021 blog post. &ldquo;I filled out all the paperwork. It took me 10 minutes. It cost me zero money.&rdquo;
He encouraged others to do the same and set up a Facebook page where they could announce their own candidacies.
Of course, James realizes he doesn&rsquo;t stand a chance. But that&rsquo;s not the point: &ldquo;When you DO something,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;it starts to form cognitive biases in your brain. For instance, I feel I have more of an obligation to have a stance on the issues or at least a stance on how to govern and lead.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Who does James think will win? And what are the investment implications?
Let&rsquo;s step back for a brief &ldquo;meta&rdquo; message: It&rsquo;s safe to say that along with Jim Rickards, James is one of the two leading public figures at Paradigm Press.
Jim is a vocal Trump supporter. He also believes Trump will pull out a victory in an incredibly tight race. But those are two separate things: His forecast of a Trump win is the result of rigorous analysis and not wishful thinking.
James, meanwhile, has been extremely circumspect about taking a stand in the presidential race &mdash; his somewhat tongue-in-cheek candidacy notwithstanding. He grew up in an America where people kept politics and religion private.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But when it comes to forecasting the outcome, James says: &ldquo;Trump is going to win.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I am not saying this because I am biased,&rdquo; he hastens to add. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a gambling man and if I had to bet, I would bet on Trump to win.&rdquo;
James was told by a colleague who once worked for George Soros that Soros laid down a $2 billion bet in 2016 that Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not going to bet that much. But if I had to bet, I&rsquo;d bet Trump.&rdquo;
Among the reasons: &ldquo;Trump tends to &lsquo;under-poll.&rsquo; In 2016 and 2020 states that he lost were by much smaller margins than the polls anticipated. I am guessing people being polled are often afraid to say, &lsquo;I&rsquo;m voting for Trump.&rsquo;&rdquo;
If, as Jim Rickards and others say, the race will come down to Pennsylvania&hellip; consider that the average poll gives Harris a one-percentage-point margin there. That compares with this time four years ago when Biden had a 4.5-percentage-point edge. Oh, he ended up winning the Keystone State by 1.2%.
&ldquo;This is, again, because of the under-polling of Trump,&rdquo; says James. &ldquo;If the same holds this year (and it was true also in 2016), then Trump wins Pennsylvania by 2&ndash;3%.&rdquo;
And thus Trump wins the whole shebang.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> So&hellip; how to invest?
James has several suggestions in the current monthly issue of Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network. Out of respect for his paying subscribers, we&rsquo;ll mention only one here &mdash; JPMorgan Chase (JPM).
The rationale is simple. &ldquo;Trump favors deregulation,&rdquo; says James. &ldquo;So a long position in JPM, the biggest bank, is a decent bet on a Trump win.&rdquo;
Yes, the irony is thick. Trump swept into office in 2016 in part because of lingering revulsion against the bank bailouts of 2008. It was deregulation under Bill Clinton that made it possible for the banks to take irresponsible risks, knowing they&rsquo;d have a taxpayer backstop.
As for JPM in particular, the bank on Dimon&rsquo;s watch did business with both the notorious fraudster Bernie Madoff and the infamous sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein. JPM admitted to five federal felonies between 2014&ndash;2020 &mdash; which is five more than the bank copped to in the preceding 100 years.
But, yes, JPM makes sense as a pick that will prosper under a Trump presidency. Come to think of it, it will probably do just fine under Harris, too; it certainly did under Biden and Obama.
Of course, JPM is a giant, well-known company. It can help you outperform the market, but it won&rsquo;t make you rich.
If that&rsquo;s what you&rsquo;re looking for, James says look no further than an overlooked corner of the stock market &mdash; one that he believes could crush every other investment going into 2025.
It has nothing to do with options, crypto, AI or anything else you might expect. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2368093">(James explains at this link.)</a>
He&rsquo;s inviting 250 bold readers to join him in a &ldquo;beta-test&rdquo; for his newest research service. It&rsquo;s a time-sensitive invitation, expiring at 9:29 a.m. EDT tomorrow just before the market opens.
Why the urgency? <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2368093">James explains when you click here</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Google&rsquo;s Nuclear Foray
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Microsoft and Amazon have their nuclear deals. Now it&rsquo;s Google&rsquo;s turn.
Google spotlights the latest chapter in our ongoing chronicle of AI, its colossal demands on the power grid &mdash; and the resulting revival of nuclear power.
In the spring, Amazon signed a 10-year deal with Talen Energy to buy the power generated by the Susquehanna nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. More recently Microsoft signed a deal to buy the power from the shuttered-but-undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island, also in Pennsylvania.
Google is taking a different tack &mdash; announcing a deal this week with privately held Kairos Power to use the juice from small modular reactors that have yet to be built.
SMRs, as the name suggests, are a newer type of reactor. They can be built in a factory and shipped to wherever it&rsquo;s intended for operation. There are about a half-dozen varieties of SMR; Kairos, based in California, uses molten fluoride salt as a coolant instead of water.
The company began construction of a demonstration plant in Tennessee this summer. Google says it expects to be using its first Kairos reactor before the end of this decade, with more to come by 2035.
That&rsquo;s about the extent of what we know now; neither company is saying how much the deal is worth or where these reactors will be installed.
For as much digital ink as we&rsquo;ve spilled in these pages about AI&rsquo;s demands on the power grid &mdash; including the prospect of rolling blackouts for residential electric customers because the grid is so fragile &mdash; we haven&rsquo;t spent a lot of time talking about the investing possibilities.
That&rsquo;s because we&rsquo;ve sought to be diligent in identifying the best of breed.
Having said that, tomorrow James Altucher&rsquo;s Microcap Millionaire service will issue a recommendation that&rsquo;s ideally poised to seize on nuclear energy as the fuel for AI.
This is what we mentioned above about the &ldquo;beta-test&rdquo; of this advisory, James&rsquo; newest. And yes, we&rsquo;re serious about the cap of 250 people.
We&rsquo;ve been waiting for months to tell readers about the right move at the right time in nuclear and AI. This is it. The recommendation goes out tomorrow morning. If you want in, now&rsquo;s the time. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2368093">Here&rsquo;s the link</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Here Comes the Melt-Up
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The fuse is now lit for a stock market melt-up,&rdquo; says Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner.
True, &ldquo;investors are nervous about the upcoming election, inflation data and what the Fed has up its sleeve as the new rate cut regime takes hold,&rdquo; Greg allows.
&ldquo;But under the surface, the markets are turning the page.&rdquo; The Dow and the S&amp;P keep touching record highs in recent days; at 5,826 this morning, the S&amp;P is only 30 points away from Monday&rsquo;s record close. And the Nasdaq is less than 2% from its July peak.
&ldquo;Some of the most explosive stocks and sectors are setting up for potentially powerful end-of-year runs,&rdquo; Greg says.
&ldquo;Tech stocks are on the move, along with software names and even some of the forgotten pandemic trades.&rdquo;
I&rsquo;m sure many of these names ring a bell. MicroStrategy (MSTR), Palantir (PLTR), Palo Alto Networks (PANW). These were the stocks on everyone&rsquo;s watchlist following the COVID lockdown.
Remember Datadog (DDOG)? After bottoming in the spring of 2020, it ripped 525% into its 2021 peak! Fast-forward a few years, and it feels like the market is entering a similar environment.
Palantir is printing new all-time highs and triple-digit returns (up 149%) after completing a multiyear base. MicroStrategy is slicing through resistance, up 191% year-to-date. And Palo Alto Networks is on the verge of breaking out.
&ldquo;More and more tech stocks are popping up as I scan the markets&hellip; tickers I haven&rsquo;t considered buying in years.&rdquo;
Elsewhere in the markets, precious metals continue looking stout &mdash; gold now $2,671 and silver at $31.67. Bitcoin&rsquo;s break above $67,000 continues to hold. Crude has inched its way past $70 again.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Totally Nonsensical Sell-off in NVDA
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> We can&rsquo;t let today go by without taking note of the peculiar action in the markets yesterday.
&ldquo;A sell-off in chip stocks weighed on major U.S. indexes,&rdquo; says this morning&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal, &ldquo;with the S&amp;P 500 and Dow both retreating 0.8% and the Nasdaq sliding 1%.&rdquo;
Well, that&rsquo;s one way of looking at it. The other is that Mr. Market freaked out in the face of a fluke event.
The big Dutch chipmaker ASML accidentally released its quarterly earnings report a day early. It was a big disappointment &mdash; total net sales well below the consensus of Wall Street analysts. ASML shares tumbled about 16.3%.
The worrisome part of ASML&rsquo;s statement was that &ldquo;while there continue to be strong developments and upside potential in AI, other market segments are taking longer to recover.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />There was a spillover effect in tech, even onto companies where it made no sense at all &mdash; such as Nvidia.
Nvidia is all about AI, right? And ASML&rsquo;s statement acknowledged &ldquo;strong developments and upside potential in AI.&rdquo; And still, NVDA sold off 4.5%.
&ldquo;As a trader, I love situations like these,&rdquo; wrote colleague Davis Wilson in yesterday&rsquo;s Altucher Confidential. &ldquo;A stock that I love is trading lower on news completely irrelevant to its business.&rdquo;
How irrelevant? Davis reminds us that demand for NVDA&rsquo;s Blackwell chips is &ldquo;insane,&rdquo; to use the words of CEO Jensen Huang. And that OpenAI will likely spend the bulk of its current $6.6 billion fundraising round on Nvidia chips.
As we write today, NVDA still hasn&rsquo;t recovered all of yesterday&rsquo;s losses &mdash; up 2.7% on the day. &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re looking for an opportunity to get into NVDA before the company reports earnings in a few weeks,&rdquo; Davis says, &ldquo;this is a great opportunity.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: War Drums, &ldquo;Packetized Media&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> After our assessment of the beating war drums in the Middle East <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/spacexs-excellent-timing#3">during Monday&rsquo;s edition</a>, a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;In The Guns of August, Barbara Tuchman&rsquo;s history of the days leading up to the beginning of World War I, she recounts a January 1910 meeting of Great Britain&rsquo;s Field Marshal Wilson, head of the Staff College, and France&rsquo;s Gen. Foch, head of the equivalent French organization.
&ldquo;Discussing British participation in a French-German war, Wilson asks Foch, &lsquo;What is the smallest British military force that would be of any practical assistance to you?&rsquo;
&ldquo;Foch immediately answers, &lsquo;A single British soldier &mdash; and we will see to it that he is killed.&rsquo;
&ldquo;As the old French saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Several keen observers have drawn parallels between the European leaders who were &ldquo;sleepwalking&rdquo; into WWI and the present moment.
The potential for miscalculation is severe &mdash; in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Taiwan. And no one in Washington, on either side of the aisle, has a clue&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As for the AI-generated summary of a series of breakup texts spotlighted in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/an-out-of-nowhere-crypto-rally">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>, a millennial weighs in&hellip;
&ldquo;As a 30-year-old, I&rsquo;m gonna have to agree that if you think AI generating these types of messages and AI summarizing them is not the way it should be, you&rsquo;re behind the times.
&ldquo;The thing is either party can and will review the information in detail, but this will help them stay high level in their conversations and intentions.
&ldquo;Keep up the great work at the 5! It&rsquo;s my only consistent daily read of news in any form. You&rsquo;re like my AI for the news!
&ldquo;(Not AI generated, but should have been.)&rdquo;
Dave: What you say brings to mind the subject of &ldquo;packetized media&rdquo; as described in recent months by the intriguing thinker John Robb.
He described it like this in a Substack post just yesterday: &ldquo;We process information differently now. Specifically, we scan torrential information flows instead of reading or watching long-form books and broadcasts to uncover new, novel or interesting information.
&ldquo;We use pattern matching to make sense of the packets of information we find through scanning. We can do this independently (few people) or rely on popular podcasters, X accounts or YouTube personalities to pattern match for us (many people).&rdquo;
In previous articles, Robb says the rewiring of brains in this way is just as profound as it was with the advent of the printing press nearly seven centuries ago.
I feel as if I&rsquo;m adapting to this new reality better than many of my peers who have adult memories of what it was like before the internet.
But it still pains me, looking at the stack of unread books that continues to pile up&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 bullets hero Businessman with ace card hidden

shutterstock 163032401

James Altucher breaks his silence on Election 2024… What are the investment implications?

Rickards and Altucher Agree on This Prediction

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" /> Tuning Out the Earnings-Season Noise
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Earnings season is the most interesting time of year. It brings out the best and the worst in the markets,&rdquo; says Enrique Abeyta &mdash; hedge fund veteran and the newest member of the Paradigm Press team.
&ldquo;On the worst side, you see heightened volatility in many stocks. The vast majority of the time, this volatility results from &lsquo;noise&rsquo; especially to the downside.
&ldquo;Very often, when stocks get hit hard on earnings, it is not because of a major change in the fundamentals. Rather, it results from a small miss on a particular metric.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The media love to fixate on a company missing the vaunted Wall Street analyst estimates by a penny or two. 
&ldquo;This,&rdquo; says Enrique, &ldquo;is why you see such big moves on very little change in a stock&rsquo;s fundamentals: negative media coverage. Once you understand this, you can find moneymaking opportunities heavily skewed in your favor.&rdquo;
With all the big banks having reported their numbers in recent days, we&rsquo;re now headed into the &ldquo;meat&rdquo; of earnings season &mdash; dozens of S&amp;P 500 companies will weigh in starting tomorrow.
On Wednesday, Tesla will report &mdash; the first of the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; companies to do so. Five more of the Mag 7 will follow next week.
As the Mag 7 goes, so goes the market: &ldquo;These companies make up more than 31% of the market capitalization of the S&amp;P 500,&rdquo; Enrique reminds us.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> What to expect? &ldquo;Recent results are the best predictor of what will happen next with companies,&rdquo; he goes on &mdash; especially huge ones with massive competitive moats like these companies.
Enrique pored over recent reports for all seven of these companies. His conclusion: &ldquo;There is a reason these names have powered the stock market higher.
&ldquo;Other than TSLA, these companies have been consistently beating numbers and seen positive earnings revisions. A few of them &mdash; NVDA and META &mdash; have absolutely blown away the numbers. As a group they have seen strong positive earnings revisions.
&ldquo;My experience over three decades as a professional investor is that large companies with long and consistent track records of beating numbers will continue to beat numbers.&rdquo;
And if the Mag 7 continue to beat numbers, that bodes well for the rest of the S&amp;P 500.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />What Really Matters During Earnings Season
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Here&rsquo;s something that will prove even more valuable over time as we head into the thick of earnings season: &ldquo;What if I told you,&rdquo; says Enrique, &ldquo;there was only one single metric you need to know to trade stocks?&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s true. He learned the hard way, slogging through dozens of useless ones for the better part of two decades. At the end of that process, he discovered only one data point really matters.
And no, it&rsquo;s not the price-earnings ratio. Indeed, he says valuation has nothing to do with it.
&ldquo;Not once in the stock market's history has a stock gone up just because it was &lsquo;cheap,&rsquo;&rdquo; says Enrique.
The real key is earnings growth.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Even Warren Buffett, the greatest value investor of all time, understands this,&rdquo; Enrique adds &mdash; drawing on the example of a famous Buffett stock, Coca-Cola.
&ldquo;Buffett bought his stake in KO back in 1988,&rdquo; he reminds us. &ldquo;That original $1.3 billion investment is now worth almost $25 billion!&rdquo; The share price has appreciated 2,193%.
Here&rsquo;s the thing: KO was not a value stock in 1988. It was trading for 16 times earnings &mdash; actually more expensive than the S&amp;P 500, which was about 14X earnings at the time.
Today, KO trades for about 25X earnings &mdash; a 56% increase in the valuation. But that drove only a small part of the returns.
&ldquo;The real driver was the earnings!&rdquo; says Enrique. &ldquo;Over the period, they&rsquo;ve gone up almost 2,400% and powered the stock price higher.
&ldquo;If the stock hadn&rsquo;t grown earnings like it has, I don&rsquo;t think it would have done very well for Buffett and other investors. It wasn&rsquo;t the valuation that made KO a fantastic stock &mdash; it was the EARNINGS GROWTH.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Earnings growth is the one single metric that always works,&rdquo; Enrique concludes.
&ldquo;If you find a company that&rsquo;s going to grow EPS from $1 to $10, then that stock is going up. It&rsquo;s that simple!&rdquo; Maybe not right away, and maybe not by a lot. &ldquo;But I guarantee you the stock is going higher.&rdquo;
With that in mind, what does he like right now? &ldquo;In my trading strategies, I look for stocks with solid growth that have stumbled &mdash; names such as Meta Platforms (META) and Nvidia (NVDA). This presents a greater chance that they will rally.
&ldquo;In my investing strategies, I look to identify stocks with huge growth &mdash; think Talen Energy (TLN) and Cava Group (CAVA). Find those, and you can find stocks that are 20-baggers like KO.&rdquo;
If you&rsquo;d like more insights like these, we encourage you to sign up for our new Truth &amp; Trends e-letter where Enrique and chart hound Greg Guenthner will up your trading game every weekday. <a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2360104">Sign up here and look for new issues Monday&ndash;Friday at 8:00 a.m. Eastern.</a>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Dollar Demolition Summit This Week
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Lost in the noise of the election and the Ukraine/Israel wars is this &mdash; &ldquo;the rise of the new BRICS currency and its potential role in the global monetary system,&rdquo; says Paradigm macro maven Jim Rickards.
Tomorrow, leaders of the BRICS nations gather for their annual summit in Kazan, Russia. The core five members of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will be joined by last year&rsquo;s additions &mdash; Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Egypt.
&ldquo;This meeting will include announcements moving the BRICS currency plans forward in material ways,&rdquo; Jim tells us. &ldquo;Members will announce significant progress in building out secure payment channels and admitting new members, which will drive the group closer to the critical mass needed to launch a currency union.
&ldquo;A new BRICS currency is coming soon in the role of a payment currency. This could be a big deal as it will mean the U.S. dollar will have a reduced role in total global payments. However, it will take longer for the BRIC to become a threat as a reserve currency as it takes time to build out the infrastructure needed to support it.
&ldquo;But a linkage of the new BRICS currency to gold could accelerate that process. Members of the BRICS currency union could use a surplus of the new currency to buy gold bullion to hold in their reserves. When needed for purchases or settlements, gold could be easily sold in the BRICS currency.
&ldquo;The common thread in these and other solutions is that they hinder U.S. dollar transactions. That&rsquo;s the point. And that is why central banks of many BRICS members have been buying so much gold in recent months.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> That said, the leader of the host nation is trying to tamp down expectations.
On Friday, Russian president Vladimir Putin met with media from BRICS member nations. &ldquo;At this point of time,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;it [a BRICS currency] is a long term prospect. It is not under consideration.
&ldquo;BRICS will be cautious and act gradually, move slowly. The time has not come yet.&rdquo;
What is on the table, he said, are more intermediate steps. As reported by The Economic Times in India, &ldquo;Putin said these countries should focus on the use of the national currencies, new financial instruments and the creation of an analogue of SWIFT.&rdquo;
SWIFT is the international messaging system that greases the gears of global payments. It&rsquo;s based in Brussels, but Washington ultimately calls the shots. Many Russian financial institutions were shut out of SWIFT after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
While Russia has withstood Western sanctions far better than Western leaders anticipated, Moscow nonetheless wants to spin up a SWIFT alternative sooner rather than later. China and Iran would likely be on board with such a scheme.
&ldquo;When leaders of the BRICS agglomeration meet this week,&rdquo; sums up The Economic Times, &ldquo;the dominant theme would be how to ringfence themselves from the financial missiles the West fires to settle political scores.&rdquo;
More to come as the week goes on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Bitcoin Breakout
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;It looks like Bitcoin is edging toward a major breakout,&rdquo; says Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner.
&ldquo;It started firming up late Sunday, holding above $69K. This is just below the last true attempt at a $70K break in May/June. Other cryptos were also starting to move as we wrapped up the weekend. Ethereum is dangerously close to breaking out of an inverse head and shoulders. Smaller cryptos are up and running.
&ldquo;Is this the beginning of a bigger breakout in the making &mdash; and the next leg of a Bitcoin run to 100K? I think this might be the case.&rdquo;
Yes, the flagship crypto has pulled back below $67,000 for the moment. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t discount a shakeout or two before Bitcoin actually decides to activate its booster rockets and extend into the $70K range &mdash; and beyond,&rdquo; Greg says.
Here&rsquo;s how he drew it on a chart Friday&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/CQveA1zID0j66tHJVjEuq/b3dc731811a7d2ede4a217cf5cdad264/BTC.png" alt="bitcoin" width="540px" />
&ldquo;If and when Bitcoin does extend higher, $100K is a downright reasonable price target for late December into early 2025.&rdquo; You heard it here first.
Then again, maybe you just rely on the &ldquo;McRib&rdquo; indicator? The wags at the TradingView site posted the following&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6w7mk7U1g8O70zxXBlaVs9/5b781804a579b4914a0985103bfd961c/Bitcoin-Dollar.png" alt="bitcoin/USD" width="540px" />
It&rsquo;s at this moment we&rsquo;ll remind you correlation does not equal causation&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As for more conventional markets, stocks and bonds are both pulling back to start the week.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 is down nearly two-thirds of a percent from Friday&rsquo;s record close of 5,864. Meanwhile, falling bond prices translate to higher yields; the yield on a 10-year Treasury note is up to 4.16%, the highest since late July.
Crude has pushed a buck higher, back over $70. Precious metals tried to start the week extending Friday&rsquo;s rally&hellip; but at last check gold is little changed from the end of last week at $2,722. Likewise for silver at $33.69.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />You Spoke, We Listened
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> After we reopened the &ldquo;long boring videos&rdquo; can of worms last Thursday, we got a flood of feedback&hellip;
&ldquo;The videos that you send out for something new are too long. Most of us know the backgrounds of the people involved and we don&rsquo;t like to hear stuff repeated over and over. So if you could allow a short and long version or give the ability to skip some things, that would be great. Also, sometimes we get interrupted and ultimately have to restart from the beginning.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Stop the long-a$$ sales videos! Ugh!&rdquo; says one of our longtimers &ldquo;It&rsquo;s like trying to get attachment through Stockholm syndrome with hours of captivity!
&ldquo;I agree with the reader who commented on your own piece about the torrential flow of information. I research/read 10 hours per day about investing ideas. I just ignore the videos. Simply no time.&rdquo;
Adds a third: &ldquo;I am a sales guy and get the &lsquo;tell to sell&rsquo; &mdash; however I am an old guy who likes to read. How about a transcript of the videos I can print out and stuff in my briefcase and read whenever I want? Still long form.
&ldquo;And yes, I just spent an eternity watching Rickards&rsquo; long &lsquo;live from the gold mine&rsquo; video and yes, he extracted another two grand from me, but I think it will be worth it!&rdquo;
Dave responds: In case you missed it during <a href="https://concierge.paradigmpressgroup.com/post/paradigms-new-shift">our weekly Paradigm Press Concierge email</a> today&hellip; we are implementing several changes after our executive publisher Matt Insley solicited reader feedback last week.
We&rsquo;re already paring back the number of emails we&rsquo;re sending. And over the next week, we&rsquo;ll offer a transcript option with all of our sales presentations.
As I said on Thursday, we&rsquo;re always going to have something to sell because that&rsquo;s <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/who-we-are-and-what-were-all-about">the nature of our business model</a>. But your feedback is being heard.
Sometimes less is more: Our fervent hope is that measures like fewer emails will translate to greater customer loyalty. That&rsquo;s a win-win all around&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 2287407855

“Earnings season is the most interesting time of year.

What Really Matters This Earnings Season

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />The Next Crypto Surge (Underway Now)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Don&rsquo;t look now, but Bitcoin sits at its highest level in nearly three months.
A sharp rally coincided with the opening of the stock market in the United States this morning. At last check, the flagship crypto is over $67,000 for the first time since late July.
Sooner or later, Bitcoin is set to burst through its March 2024 record over $73,000. Certainly that&rsquo;s the case if history is any guide.
A few weeks after that March peak came the every-four-years &ldquo;halving&rdquo; event &mdash; in which the rewards from Bitcoin mining are cut in half.
After a halving, it takes twice as much computing power to generate the same quantity of new Bitcoin. This is what&rsquo;s built into the Bitcoin algorithm to keep its supply strictly limited &mdash; unlike U.S. dollars and other fiat currencies that governments can print willy-nilly.
Typically, Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto space rally strongly in the 15&ndash;18 months after a halving.
Here&rsquo;s another way to look at this four-year cycle, recently posted on Xwitter&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5oIjKByRaAsZ5e3MPekXkT/06dc40acfae6aeeadd1e47342477e320/Altcoin.png" alt="altcoin daily" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On Friday, Paradigm&rsquo;s top crypto analyst Chris Campbell wrote of an &ldquo;upcoming surge&rdquo; that &ldquo;could be massive, a movement that will likely catch many off guard.&rdquo;
As a senior analyst for our crypto-and-AI authority James Altucher, Chris offered several items of supporting evidence.
For starters, &ldquo;Bitcoin reserves on exchanges are hitting levels we haven&rsquo;t seen in six years, signaling that more people are holding their Bitcoin rather than selling it. Historically, when reserves drop, we often see a significant price increase.&rdquo;
Chris also points us to research showing that more people are using crypto now than were using the internet in 1997. Given what happened with internet growth after 1997, that&rsquo;s a very promising trajectory.
Oh, and returning to the aforementioned four-year cycle? What else happens every four years along with Bitcoin halvings? U.S. presidential elections. The pattern is uncanny&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4562GxEDp6AXyILuhnuPRL/f624ab24be5f581d170a0d44c571c70c/ElectionsChart.png" alt="elections chart" width="540px" />
The surge appears to be underway this morning. And it&rsquo;s probably just the beginning.

[Editor&rsquo;s note: As attractive as crypto is looking right now, James Altucher is pounding the table about what he calls the most explosive subniche of the stock market.
In fact he&rsquo;s putting the final touches on a &ldquo;beta test&rdquo; invitation for his newest research service, specializing in these very companies that he says historically have &ldquo;thrown off some of the biggest gains you&rsquo;ve ever seen in your life.&rdquo;
But we&rsquo;re keeping a strict cap on the number of beta testers &mdash; 250. If you even think you might want in, <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2367677">you&rsquo;ll need to click here and act fast</a>.]

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />A Fed Pause? Already?!
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The Federal Reserve has no choice but to cut interest rates again next month &mdash; even if it risks rekindling the fires of inflation.
That&rsquo;s the assessment of Paradigm&rsquo;s Zach Scheidt after poring over the recent inflation and job numbers. Both came in &ldquo;hotter than expected.&rdquo;
&ldquo;A strong labor market and reigniting inflation are definitely a concern for the Fed going forward,&rdquo; Zach says. &ldquo;The Fed doesn&rsquo;t want to cut rates too quickly into a strong economy because that could reignite inflation even further.&rdquo;
But as for the chatter you might be seeing in the media? About the Fed pausing rate cuts after starting on a new rate-cutting cycle only last month? Forget it.
As Zach puts it, &ldquo;You can&rsquo;t put the cat back in the bag once it&rsquo;s out.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Of course, these numbers are cause for concern with the Fed, but generally speaking, the Fed doesn&rsquo;t like to start something and then stop immediately. It wouldn't be a good look for the Fed if they did because it would show they are out of touch with reality.
&ldquo;So for credibility's sake, I think the Fed will continue to cut by a small amount in November and December.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Maybe that&rsquo;s what the stock market&rsquo;s been sniffing out as the major indexes hover near all-time highs.
Those indexes are taking a breather today &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 down a quarter percent to 5,844. But the momentum is still to the upside. Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner sees &ldquo;what is beginning to feel like an inevitable year-end melt-up.&rdquo;
To be sure, &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll get our fair share of pullbacks and gut checks&hellip; But the scales are tipping in favor of the bulls &mdash; that much is clear.&rdquo;
Once more we&rsquo;ll point out how resilient the stock market looks in spite of a rallying dollar. The U.S. dollar index (DXY) now sits over 103 &mdash; levels last seen in early August. The rebound off 100 in late September has been relentless. Any other time that might prove to be a drag on stocks &mdash; but not now.
Likewise, gold is hanging in there despite that dollar strength &mdash; the bid up $11 today to $2,660. Gold has spent all of October over $2,600 &mdash; a healthy consolidation after a furious run-up from July through September.

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Market Manipulations? (Oil Today)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />If it&rsquo;s thrills-n-chills you&rsquo;re looking for in the markets today, it&rsquo;s in crude &mdash; a barrel of West Texas Intermediate down 5% on the day and about to break below $70.
Perhaps it helps that, according to The Washington Post, Israel does not plan to hit Iran&rsquo;s oil industry whenever it launches an attack on Iran sometime before U.S. Election Day.
In addition, OPEC has once more slashed its forecast for crude demand growth &mdash; both for the rest of this year and 2025.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But it&rsquo;s hard not to look at a move like today&rsquo;s and wonder if a &ldquo;hidden hand&rdquo; is at work.
The market for oil futures has been used to mask a host of manipulations for more than three decades.
The veteran oil industry journalist Jim Norman documented these manipulations extensively in his 2008 book The Oil Card.
Modern oil futures as we know them began trading in New York in 1983 &mdash; only months after President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 66. Under NSDD-66, Washington began colluding with Saudi Arabia to drive down oil prices. Objective: Make Soviet oil exports dirt-cheap and bankrupt the Evil Empire.
One of the leading global oil traders in the 1970s quickly became one of the biggest players in the nascent oil futures market. Transworld Oil, controlled by John Deuss, accounted for up to 30% of NYMEX oil trade &mdash; most of it on the short side, betting prices would fall. Deuss had long-rumored ties to the CIA&hellip; and it was CIA chief William Casey who did much to implement NSDD-66.
Crude traded around $30 a barrel at the time NYMEX oil futures began trading in 1983. By the late '80s, oil was in a range between $12&ndash;22. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6FxhbUWY6IQeJbHnjINZ30/abcb6af28983de16ceb5f08e845d659b/BerlinWall.png" alt="berlin wall" width="540px" />

Made possible in part by cheap oil... [Photo reproduced by Wikimedia Commons user Lear 21]
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> More manipulations took place as oil climbed relentlessly during the early 2000s. 
The geopolitical objectives had shifted: High oil prices would act as a brake on Chinese economic growth. And the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 would help make it happen. The law "would eventually turn the oil futures market from mainly a zero-sum risk-hedging and price-discovery vehicle into a quasi-securities market," wrote Mr. Norman.
"The price of oil is now less dependent on the actual supply and demand for 'wet' barrels than on the huge sums of money pouring into NYMEX futures from the pension and other investment funds, tacitly enabled and encouraged by U.S. regulators. Daily oil volumes on the NYMEX now dwarf global physical oil consumption."
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Indeed, there may be as many as 100 "paper barrels" of oil trading for each barrel of the real thing.
"The volumes are far, far out of whack with any reasonable need to hedge physical supply/demand risk," Norman told your editor during a 2013 interview. "The amount of funds needed to dramatically influence crude prices would be 'chump change' compared with the sums needed in the debt and equity markets."
The motivation for today&rsquo;s plunge? It&rsquo;s tempting to speculate that the aim is a quick drop in gasoline prices ahead of Election Day, the better to benefit the Democrats.
But that seems a little too obvious, no? Besides, at $3.20 a gallon, the national average for regular unleaded is already 40 cents cheaper than it was a year ago&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Power Struggle: Big Tech vs. Homeowners
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />With AI consuming ever more of the electric grid, a strange power struggle is emerging in Ohio &mdash; pitting Big Tech and state utility regulators on one side, versus the power company and consumers on the other.
The story begins in May when the state&rsquo;s big power utility &mdash; AEP Ohio &mdash; issued a proposal to the state&rsquo;s utility regulator, setting financial requirements for anyone who wanted to connect a data center to the power grid.
The terms included 10-year contracts and an agreement to pay for at least 90% of the electricity they request.
That seems like a reasonable demand considering that AEP would have to build out additional capacity to accommodate the data centers. How much? AEP says it currently has 600 megawatts set aside for data centers in central Ohio, but it&rsquo;s had inquiries from customers seeking 30 gigawatts &mdash; a staggering 50X increase.
Big Tech did not like these terms. At all. Said Amazon over the summer: &ldquo;AEP Ohio should not single out data centers as the sole cause of &mdash; or solution to &mdash; the problem of capacity constraints."
An outfit called the Data Center Coalition &mdash; made up of Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Facebook among others &mdash; was even more forceful: "If AEP Ohio&rsquo;s unprecedented proposal is adopted, Ohio will send a clear signal to the data center industry that AEP Ohio&rsquo;s territory is closed for business."
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> This month, the Data Center Coalition issued its own proposal to the regulators. 
The details are extremely hazy. Here&rsquo;s how The Columbus Dispatch tried to make sense of it: &ldquo;The settlement includes creating long-term commitments for customers that use large amounts of electricity. It also calls for a PUCO [Public Utilities Commission of Ohio] investigation to alleviate near-term system capacity constraints in central Ohio at a faster pace and lower the cost of new transmission.&rdquo;
A lot of mumbo jumbo. But AEP doesn&rsquo;t like it, nor does PUCO&rsquo;s staff. The state-appointed consumer watchdog, Ohio Consumers&rsquo; Counsel Maureen Willis, had no trouble cutting through the confusion.
&ldquo;While business growth in Ohio is a good thing,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;residential utility consumers &mdash; who already pay exorbitant transmission costs &mdash; should not be forced to subsidize utility investment for data centers operated by multibillion-dollar companies.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ll be watching this case closely. If the Data Center Coalition gets its way, look for similar efforts in other states &mdash; pushing demand higher, raising prices for homeowners and maybe even running the risk of planned blackouts. Stay tuned&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />An Encouraging Word
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I for one thank you for your daily missives &mdash; keep it up,&rdquo; says a reader who writes in from time to time. &ldquo;Don't let those that disagree with you get the best of you.
As far as the voting argument, people can vote for whomever they want &mdash; that's their right. However, I agree with Richard Maybury and plan on NOT voting for either major party candidate. To me, voting for either one would be throwing away my vote. Out of over 330 million people in this country, those two are the best we can do?
&ldquo;Thanks again Dave. I look forward to seeing the daily FREE 5 Bullets and don't plan on canceling any of my subscriptions. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!&rdquo;
Dave: An oldie but a goodie&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/K6TDWzHAyHzzxlcOgPIAz/9cb301601ee4d04be01d4493d4a44c04/Vote.png" alt="vote" width="540px" />
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 2464800449

Don’t look now, but Bitcoin sits at its highest level in nearly three months.

An Out-of-Nowhere Crypto Rally

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />On Further Consideration&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> OK, even a hardened cynic ought to be impressed with this&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6afqVLntBmxiQQALkXd0eB/85c4c6fb2ad9f1bfdd17fdd342a10c25/elon-tweet.png" alt="elon tweet" width="540px" />
Yesterday SpaceX conducted a successful fifth test flight of its Starship at Boca Chica, Texas &mdash; and an engineering first.
&ldquo;Rather than have the booster land in the ocean, as is typical,&rdquo; reports the BBC, &ldquo;SpaceX managed to slow it from speeds in excess of 17,000 mph (27,350 km/h), guide it gently back to the launchpad and catch it in a pair of giant mechanical arms.&rdquo;
Yes, a reusable booster. That&rsquo;s a major cost savings when it comes to space exploration.
For SpaceX founder Elon Musk, the booster capture was a welcome opportunity to change the subject from the indifferent if not hostile reaction he got to his Cybercab event Thursday night.
The media was unimpressed &mdash; &ldquo;heavy on showbiz but light on business&rdquo; said The Wall Street Journal &mdash; and shares of Tesla took an 8.8% spill the next day.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But was the Cybercab event really the dud the corporate media made it out to be?
During the 2010s, Musk would frequently put on events with far less substance &mdash; and the media oohed and aahed.
But that was before Musk&rsquo;s falling-out with the rest of the power elite. From the moment in May 2020 that he kept Tesla&rsquo;s factory in Fremont, California open in defiance of Alameda County&rsquo;s lockdown orders&hellip; nearly every new Musk reveal has gotten the media&rsquo;s side-eye.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The We, Robot event wasn't just about unveiling new products,&rdquo; ventures Paradigm&rsquo;s tech-investing authority Ray Blanco.
Musk, says Ray, &ldquo;also painted a picture of a world transformed by autonomous technology.
&ldquo;Musk&rsquo;s vision is for a world so exciting that he wishes he could be there now. He spoke of turning parking lots into parks, of creating space in our cities. He painted a picture of an age of abundance, where AI leads to plummeting costs for products and services.
&ldquo;It's a future where the pain of transport &mdash; the hours lost to traffic, the frustration of rush hour &mdash; becomes a thing of the past.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;At the heart of this revolution is the Cybercab, a vehicle that embodies the essence of autonomous transport,&rdquo; Ray goes on.
&ldquo;With no steering wheel or pedals, it's a bold statement about the future of mobility.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7JHjs2nrBNh24hj1EUOpE9/214ac12f88ac7ef474f3c104141bb18e/Cybercab.png" alt="cybercab" width="540px" />

The Cybercab brings new meaning to &ldquo;Look Ma, no hands!&rdquo; [Tesla photo]
&ldquo;Musk also expects it to cost under $30,000,&rdquo; Ray adds.
&ldquo;But he isn't content to wait until 2026 when the Cybercab is slated for production. He's pushing for unsupervised self-driving in Tesla's Model 3 and Y as early as next year in Texas and California.
&ldquo;It's an ambitious timeline, but one that speaks to the rapid pace of innovation in this space.&rdquo;
And it wasn&rsquo;t just the cybercab: There was also a Robovan, an autonomous vehicle carrying up to 20 people at a time&hellip; and a humanoid robot called Optimus. Costing as little as $20,000, Musk intends for Optimus to become as common as iPhones.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Yes, there will be obstacles along the way: &ldquo;Achieving unsupervised self-driving by next year is an ambitious goal that may face regulatory scrutiny,&rdquo; Ray allows. &ldquo;Competition in the autonomous vehicle and AI chip space is fierce.
<a id="2"></a>
&ldquo;Plus, Tesla's history of ambitious timelines suggests that some features may take longer to materialize than stated, something Musk hinted at himself during his presentation.
&ldquo;But I have little doubt about the direction we&rsquo;re heading in. AI is the future of transportation and beyond.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Rocket Launches and Social Media Posts
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Speaking of Musk and his continued falling-out with the power elite&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1O7twtq8ii3i2fHwrToQ3B/aaf0ab7824c56f47e30c7fdaede518d1/LA-Times.png" alt="LA Times" width="540px" />
&ldquo;SpaceX&rsquo;s plans to launch more rockets from the California coast were rejected by a state commission,&rdquo; reports the Los Angeles Times &mdash; &ldquo;with some officials citing Elon Musk&rsquo;s political posts on X and raising concerns about the billionaire&rsquo;s labor record at his companies.
&ldquo;The plan to increase the number of rocket blasts into space up to 50 a year was rejected by the California Coastal Commission on Thursday despite assurances from Space Force and Air Force officials that they would increase efforts to monitor the effects that rocket launches have on nearby wildlife.&rdquo;
As the name implies, the California Coastal Commission&rsquo;s remit has to do with the environmental impact of business activity. It has nothing to do with the social media posts of business owners.
The good folks at FIRE &mdash; the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression &mdash; have risen to Musk&rsquo;s defense: &ldquo;The First Amendment forbids government agencies from leveraging regulatory power to stifle protected speech,&rdquo; FIRE says in a post on X.
&ldquo;That was true when Florida&rsquo;s government punished Disney for opposing Gov. Ron DeSantis&rsquo;s education policies, it was true when a New York agency leaned on insurance companies to cut ties with the NRA because of its political advocacy and it&rsquo;s true here.
&ldquo;No matter the politics at issue, regulatory oversight isn&rsquo;t a blank check for censorship.&rdquo;
<a id="3"></a>
God bless the people at FIRE. They&rsquo;re among the very few left who put principle above politics.
In the meantime, look for SpaceX to carry out a lot more of its launches from Texas &mdash; like the one yesterday.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />U.S. Troops as a Trip Wire
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Oil begins a new week down nearly 2%: For the moment, Mr. Market&rsquo;s attitude toward the Middle East is Wake me up when something happens.
Yesterday the Pentagon announced it will deploy a THAAD anti-missile battery to Israel &mdash; the acronym standing for &ldquo;Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense.&rdquo; CNN reports that about 100 U.S. troops will be deployed to operate the system.
The decision comes as Washington and Tel Aviv continue to coordinate plans for an Israeli attack on Iran.
On the surface, it&rsquo;s a baffling decision: &ldquo;What would be the purpose of US personnel operating an extremely expensive system which Israel already possesses, and which Iran apparently foiled in its latest retaliatory attack?&rdquo; tweets the independent journalist Max Blumenthal.
&ldquo;It seems the Biden admin is on the verge of turning U.S. troops into human shields for Israel, exploiting their presence to prevent Iran from striking near their strategically significant locations, as it seeks to limit direct U.S. involvement in the conflict.
&ldquo;American soldiers therefore become human trip wires as well, as any U.S. casualties would trigger calls in Washington for an all-out U.S. war on Iran. And that is precisely what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has been angling for since he returned to the PM&rsquo;s office 15 years ago.&rdquo;
Or are U.S. casualties the aim for Washington as well?
Says Daniel McAdams at the Ron Paul Institute: &ldquo;It appears certain that President Biden and his neocon-dominated foreign policy team are setting up U.S. military members to be killed in Israel to manufacture consent for a full-on U.S. war against all of Israel's enemies in the region.&rdquo;
But none of that is priced into a barrel of West Texas intermediate this morning &mdash; down $1.69 to $73.87.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Economic Numbers: Just So Much Background Noise
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />For the next few months, major economic numbers like inflation and unemployment will matter less to the stock market than before.
That&rsquo;s the assessment of Enrique Abeyta &mdash; former hedge fund bigwig and the newest member of the Paradigm team.
&ldquo;For the last two or three years,&rdquo; Enrique writes in our new Truth &amp; Trends e-letter, &ldquo;macroeconomic data has driven volatility and the direction of the stock market overall.&rdquo;
But a funny thing happened last Thursday with a &ldquo;hotter than expected&rdquo; inflation number. &ldquo;The S&amp;P 500 fell 0.21% while the Nasdaq Composite was down 0.05%.
&ldquo;There may have been a few market-moving reports in the last six months, but the price volatility of the stock market around these reports has been dying down this year.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s the thing: &ldquo;This is completely normal,&rdquo; says Enrique.
&ldquo;The stock market and economy go through periods where macroeconomic data plays a major role in the outcome. This is the exception, though, and not the rule.&rdquo;
The bulk of the time, Enrique says what matters is good ol&rsquo; prices and earnings.
One of his favorite sayings is that PRICE = TRUTH. &ldquo;There are well-defined technical setups that can make you money with in any type of market,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;When the market isn&rsquo;t being thrown around by macroeconomic data, then they work even better. I believe we&rsquo;re entering that kind of bull market/melt-up period right now.&rdquo;
As for earnings, we&rsquo;re entering earnings season right now: &ldquo;If companies continue to increase earnings, beat expectations and raise estimates, then the stock market will go higher.
Maybe by a lot, or maybe only a little. Maybe now, or maybe later. But if earnings go up, the market will go higher.&rdquo;
Enrique&rsquo;s conclusion: &ldquo;If we are entering a period when macroeconomic data is less important, then it will also be good for fundamental strategies based on earnings.
&ldquo;You can focus on finding companies growing and beating numbers. And stop worrying about a 0.01% &lsquo;miss&rsquo; on an inflation or GDP number.&rdquo;
Not that we&rsquo;ll ignore the numbers in this space. Just know that going forward they&rsquo;ll matter less to the market&rsquo;s day-to-day action&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As for today&rsquo;s action, it&rsquo;s all green for the major U.S. indexes. The Dow and S&amp;P 500 are powering still higher into record territory&hellip; while at 18,480 the Nasdaq is less than 1% away from reclaiming its July 10 record close.
Precious metals are losing ground &mdash; but gold is still well above $2,600 and silver&rsquo;s holding the line on $31. Bitcoin is about to break through the $66,000 barrier for the first time this month.
Yes, the markets are open on Columbus Day. This is one of only two days a year that the stock market is open while many banks and all post offices are closed. The other is Veterans Day next month.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Breaking up Is Hard to Do, AI Edition
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The future of breakups is here and it looks like this&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/UlPMeXSdNWNUWatLf8Yt7/43d69781bf189e730741e49d0afb8aae/MB.png" alt="MB" width="540px" />
That&rsquo;s an AI-generated summary of text messages sent last week by the girlfriend &mdash; well, ex-girlfriend &mdash; of a New York-based software developer named Nick Spreen.
Spreen has been running a beta version of iOS on his iPhone in recent weeks &mdash; featuring a souped-up version of Apple Intelligence that will soon be part of iOS 18.1. (For us non-beta testers, the current version is 18.0.1.)
In the new release, the AI assistant will helpfully summarize a string of texts for you &mdash; even if the texts have to do with something as sensitive as breaking off a relationship.
Spreen posted the screengrab on his X account. Asked if it was real, he confirmed it was. And it happened on his birthday, no less.
"I do feel like it added a level of distance to it that wasn&rsquo;t a bad thing," Spreen says in an interview with Ars Technica. "Maybe a bit like a personal assistant who stays professional and has your back even in the most awful situations.&rdquo;
Then he added: &ldquo;But yeah, more than anything it felt unreal and dystopian."
Ars Technica writer Benj Edwards speculates the day might come when you can ask an AI to compose a series of breakup texts on your behalf. (Sounds plausible if AI can already generate term papers, right?)
And then&hellip; the recipient can get an AI summary of your AI-generated breakup texts.
And it&rsquo;s at that point your editor fully embraces the late Douglas Adams&rsquo; description of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/starting-an-ai-company-from-scratch">how those of us over age 35 approach technology&hellip;</a>
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 585342653

OK, even a hardened cynic ought to be impressed with this…

SpaceX’s Excellent Timing 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Uncle Sam&rsquo;s Unprecedented Budget Gap
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For the record: Uncle Sam just racked up an annual budget deficit of $1.8 trillion.
As the week winds down, we have several loose ends to wrap up &mdash; none more important to your financial future than this one.
For the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, the government spent $6.75 trillion &mdash; while collecting only $4.92 trillion in revenue. That&rsquo;s according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office; final figures will come from the White House later this month.
&ldquo;Despite steady economic growth and low unemployment, annual deficits are growing again after declining from pandemic-era highs,&rdquo; says The New York Times.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s worse than the mainstream lets on. The deficit for fiscal 2024 amounts to 6.4% of America&rsquo;s annual economic output as measured by GDP.
In records going back nearly a century, there are only three times this number has been worse &mdash; World War II, the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and the 2020 pandemic.
You&rsquo;ll notice none of those conditions are present now: No WWII-scale conflict, no financial crisis, no pandemic.
&ldquo;A [nearly] $2 trillion deficit is bad news during a recession and war, but completely unprecedented during peace and prosperity,&rdquo; the Manhattan Institute&rsquo;s Brian Riedl tells The Washington Post.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5r9Ere3nCHsbBPteKM5Fvc/070021cd1f61c0323e2dbd5ff4bf8102/FMF_5Bullets_Chart_1011.png" alt="unprecedented" width="540px" />
As we mentioned last month, the pandemic set the federal government on a permanently higher trajectory of spending. This chart makes it obvious there&rsquo;s no going back to a pre-pandemic &ldquo;normal.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1hahbVFl8Sccb7v2vMMRvg/87c0453ed1fdd25cc06ddefaad7eab7c/5_Bullets_Chart_091124.png" alt="no going back to normal" width="540px" />
Now&hellip; imagine how much worse both of these charts will look in the event of war or financial crisis or another pandemic.
(Or maybe all three, seeing as our presumed overlords at the World Economic Forum are entertaining the likelihood of a <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2023/01/17/davos-whitewashing-the-great-reset/">&ldquo;polycrisis.&rdquo;</a>)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Still worse is this: &ldquo;Neither candidate for the nation&rsquo;s highest office has offered any hint of understanding the problem, let alone doing anything about it,&rdquo; writes Bill Bonner, the founder of Paradigm&rsquo;s parent company.
&ldquo;To the contrary, each aims to make it worse with some combination of tax cuts and spending increases&hellip;
&ldquo;In the broadest and simplest analysis... a nation should seek peace and prosperity. Then, citizens are able to pursue happiness however they choose. But to have peace and prosperity, the feds have to eschew war and inflation. Instead, America&rsquo;s elites &mdash; the people who control the government &mdash; are choosing bombs, boondoggles and B.S. on a scale never before seen in the history of man.&rdquo;
A reckoning is inevitable. Our guidance today is the same as it was <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/12-days-to-dollar-demolition-summit">yesterday</a> in anticipation of the &ldquo;dollar demolition summit&rdquo; in Russia later this month: As Jim Rickards has long recommended, a 10% gold allocation in your portfolio will cover your bases for any eventuality.
Adds Paradigm&rsquo;s recovering investment banker Sean Ring: &ldquo;While tech has provided gobsmacking returns in recent years, precious metals now offer a compelling alternative.&rdquo;
Sean just wrapped up a &ldquo;Gold Week&rdquo; at our sister e-letter, the Rude Awakening: <a href="https://rudeawakening.info">We encourage you to check out his article archive here</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Attack on Iran: Inevitable but Not Imminent
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The oil market ends the week on tenterhooks, as a U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran seems inevitable but not necessarily imminent.
The drip-drip-drip of hints has come all week. On Tuesday, NBC reported that Washington is considering its own airstrikes on Iran in addition to those by Tel Aviv. Yesterday, Axios reported that Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu &ldquo;moved closer to an understanding on the scope of Israel's planned retaliation against Iran.&rdquo;
That said, the Times of Israel reports that the discussions &ldquo;will continue in the days ahead.&rdquo;
How many days, no one is specifying. In case you&rsquo;re keeping count, 25 days remain before U.S. Election Day. If an attack on Iran is this year&rsquo;s &ldquo;October surprise,&rdquo; it will be the most telegraphed October surprise in decades.
In the meantime, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is little changed from yesterday&rsquo;s close at $75.67. Since Wednesday it&rsquo;s traded both below $72 and above $78.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Meanwhile, the Dow and the S&amp;P 500 are on track to end the week at record levels. At last check the S&amp;P has crested 5,800 for the first time.
Yes, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is lagging &mdash; having gone three months without reclaiming its July record. But Paradigm&rsquo;s floor-trading veteran Alan Knuckman believes it will play catch-up soon enough.
&ldquo;The Nasdaq right now is 2% off the all-time forever highs, but it's still up 35% in the last 52 weeks,&rdquo; Alan tells readers of The Profit Wire. &ldquo;Forty times the Nasdaq has set new records in 2024 alone and it shouldn't be long for that to happen once again.&rdquo;
Big movers today include Tesla &mdash; down 8% after Elon Musk&rsquo;s big reveal of a &ldquo;Cybercab&rdquo; last night.
<blockquote>➢ If you&rsquo;re a Paradigm Mastermind Group member, keep an eye on your inbox today for follow-up coverage about the tiny company that our team believes will be key to making Musk&rsquo;s plans a reality.</blockquote>
Meanwhile, earnings season is underway with a &ldquo;beat&rdquo; by JPMorgan Chase on both revenue and profits; checking our screens, JPM is up 4.5% from yesterday&rsquo;s close.
The big economic number of the day is the producer price index. The month-to-month change was flat. But the year-over-year change is a 1.8% increase &mdash; up from 1.7% the month earlier.
Thus, inflation at the wholesale level is moving in the wrong direction. It will reach the consumer level sooner or later&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Not Nearly Enough Nukes
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It&rsquo;s not exactly a surprise, but &ldquo;the Biden administration is working on plans to bring additional decommissioned nuclear power reactors back online to help meet soaring demand for emissions-free electricity,&rdquo; says the Reuters newswire.
Plans are already underway to restart two mothballed nuclear plants &mdash; the undamaged unit at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and the Palisades plant in Michigan.
Asked at a Reuters conference in New York whether additional plants could be restarted, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi said, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re working on it in a very concrete way. There are two I can think of&rdquo; &mdash; although he wouldn&rsquo;t say where they are.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />But there&rsquo;s an elephant in the room. It takes years to spin up shuttered nuclear reactors &mdash; perhaps not enough time to avert rolling blackouts.
Bank of America researchers issued a report this month forecasting an explosion in demand for electricity &mdash; &ldquo;driven by the re-shoring of industry, the development of data and crypto mining centers and the electrification of buildings, transportation, and infrastructure.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ll remind you once more of the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-monster-that-ate-the-power-grid-ai#5">prodigious demands</a> that AI places on the power grid: The restarted Three Mile Island reactor will be used by only one customer &mdash; Microsoft.
The Bank of America analysts project the need for an additional 100 gigawatts of capacity by 2035 &mdash; and perhaps as much as 300 gigawatts.
The amount of juice that will be generated by these revived nuke plants? About one gigawatt each.
Bonus points: Palisades won&rsquo;t be up and running for another two years, and TMI Unit 1 won&rsquo;t be ready again until 2028.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Update: The Nord Stream Whodunit
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />There&rsquo;s now an eyewitness account that U.S. Navy ships were in the vicinity of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline shortly before it was sabotaged in September 2022.
As you might recall, the mainstream immediately latched onto a narrative that the attack was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin &mdash; even though there was zero incentive for him to do so. After all, Russia needed the revenue from its natural gas customers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.
The narrative fell apart over time and by this summer, the mainstream settled on the story that it was Ukrainian saboteurs &mdash; never mind that they likely lacked the skill and materiel to pull it off.
Our own Jim Rickards stuck his neck out in January 2023 when he said President Biden ordered the attack. Days later, an article by the legendary investigative reporter Seymour Hersh corroborated that assessment.
Late last month, the Danish newspaper Politiken published an interview with John Anker Nielsen, the harbormaster at Denmark&rsquo;s Christians&oslash; Island &mdash; not far from where Nord Stream 2 runs under the Baltic Sea.
He says in the days before the attack, he noticed some ships in the distance. Their transponders had been turned off. He suspected there&rsquo;d been an accident. There was not.
&ldquo;Four or five days before the Nord Stream explosions,&rdquo; reports Politiken, &ldquo;he was with the rescue service from Christians&oslash; because there were some ships with their radios turned off. It turned out they were U.S. Navy ships. When the rescue service approached them, he was asked by the naval command to turn back.&rdquo;
No, the ironclad proof still isn&rsquo;t there. But when examining means, motive and opportunity, the most likely suspect is &mdash; well, we even ran a meme about it the week it happened&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5u2rCHm3WNGUQiE6JJwS4g/f6b4757fe62463390b14593055ed0bdb/I-did-that.png" alt="i did that" width="450px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Dems Throw the Race?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In light of the botched federal response to recent natural disasters, a reader writes: &ldquo;Is it possible the Democratic leadership knows they are going to lose and lose badly?
&ldquo;Just look at all the poor choices they are making &mdash; especially those they are promoting to be head of the country, plus many other things of note.
&ldquo;Why not do as much damage as possible in the time they have left, give the election to Trump and then see him and Republicans flounder trying to resolve all the complexities that were left to resolve in four short years, and when Americans see that he couldn't do it, the next election leaves the Democrats with the best chance to retake office in a big way. What's four years to a politician?&rdquo;
Dave: You&rsquo;re articulating something that sprang to my mind after the first attempt on Trump&rsquo;s life, <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-madness-is-just-beginning">when it seemed he might coast to an easy victory</a>.
So yeah: For all their hand-wringing about Trump&rsquo;s threat to &ldquo;our democracy,&rdquo; it&rsquo;s at least conceivable that Democrats would be content to leave him in charge of a rapidly spreading dumpster fire. Then they can &ldquo;ride to the rescue&rdquo; in 2028 and dominate both the White House and Congress &mdash; as they did for 14 years after FDR&rsquo;s election in 1932.
Maybe there&rsquo;s something to it, maybe not.
People who follow such matters more closely than I say Kamala Harris needs at least a 3 percentage-point margin in the national popular vote to overcome Trump&rsquo;s advantage in the Electoral College tally. (Biden&rsquo;s margin in 2020 was 4.5 points.)
For the moment that looks like a steep climb.
There is one compelling item of anecdotal evidence to support the Dems-have-given-up thesis: Saturday Night Live has taken to <a href="https://x.com/GrahamAllen_1/status/1842876430939492614">roasting</a> Kamala Harris.
This is the same SNL that during the Trump administration did a cringeworthy <a href="https://x.com/nbcsnl/status/1069116519207063553">chorus-line paean</a> to the Russiagate special counsel called &ldquo;All I Want for Christmas Is Mueller.&rdquo;
Go figure, huh?
Have a good weekend,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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As the week winds down, we have several loose ends to wrap up – none more important to your financial future than this one… 

Unprecedented

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The media is ignoring it, but a global summit gets underway in 12 more days — and the future of the dollar is at the top of the agenda.

12 Days to Dollar Demolition Summit

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Energy Storage in Space
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Chinese scientists have achieved a breakthrough in battery technology that could transform energy storage. 
Researchers at the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics developed new organic molecules for aqueous organic flow batteries (AOFBs).
<ul>
<li>Mechanism: Aqueous organic flow batteries generate electrical current using molecules dissolved in liquids stored on opposite sides of a membrane.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>New Molecules: The Chinese team created novel naphthalene-based derivative molecules that remain stable in normal air, minimizing side reactions that degrade battery performance.</li>
</ul>
In fact, the study &ldquo;found that the battery worked for about 22 days when exposed to continuous airflow &lsquo;without obvious capacity decay,&rsquo;&rdquo; says The Cool Down (TCD).
Of course, no discussion of battery technology would be complete without taking a look underneath the hood at Tesla&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Tesla Energy reported record-breaking energy storage deployments for its Powerwall and Megapack products in the second quarter of 2024, according to Paradigm editor &mdash; and James Altucher&rsquo;s right-hand man &mdash; Chris Campbell.
Powerwall is Tesla's rechargeable lithium-ion battery designed for residential use. With a capacity of 13.5 kWh, Powerwall stores excess solar energy or grid electricity for later use, providing backup power during outages and helping homeowners optimize energy usage, ideally for cost savings.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/8Eou2M7D7Dgl70rMQWGHT/d98a09a3603653f9596a3332dd170f87/powerwall.png" alt="powerwall" width="540px" />

Source: Tesla.com Powerwall 3
Megapack, on the other hand, is Tesla's large-scale energy storage solution, intended for commercial applications. Each Megapack unit can store up to 3.9 MWh of energy&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1TLVif0iTRieBKkt6bAoyN/9f08ddc63f9012a705bbc80c07724aed/megapack.png" alt="megapack" width="540px" />

Source: Tesla.com One Megapack unit
Meanwhile, multiple Megapacks can be combined to create energy storage installations &mdash; to be used for grid stabilization, load shedding and managing power supply and demand more efficiently.
Tesla's energy storage business? Showing massive growth potential.
Tesla expects its energy-storage revenue to outpace revenue from its automotive business this year.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;In practical terms, this means Tesla installed more battery storage systems than ever before so far in 2024,&rdquo; Chris says.
&ldquo;While Tesla Energy&rsquo;s 6.9 GWh worth of deployments in Q3 2024 are lower than Q2 2024&rsquo;s 9.4 GWh, it remains extremely impressive. It is, if any, still the highest energy deployments in the third quarter by Tesla Energy to date,&rdquo; according to Teslarati.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3hmuSdsngtQCa3hYJDQAL3/0834fcb69d011de2eddfbafb470ea1b1/Tesla-energy.png" alt="tesla energy" width="540px" />

Source: X
&ldquo;Large-scale storage can help us out here on Earth, no doubt,&rdquo; says Chris.
&ldquo;Powerwall and Megapack technologies are training grounds for creating self-sufficient energy systems. (Even if nuclear power is the play, advanced storage systems are necessary.)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;These storage solutions are crucial for managing intermittent solar power&hellip; key for Mars,&rdquo; Chris adds.
To Chris&rsquo; way of thinking, all Elon Musk's ventures are interconnected with the goal of establishing life on Mars. (And here you thought yesterday&rsquo;s <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/starting-an-ai-company-from-scratch">episode</a> was ripped from the pages of a sci-fi novel.)
The Cybertruck, for example, uses the same stainless steel as SpaceX's Starship&hellip; Designed perhaps as a prototype Mars ground vehicle? Musk said as much when he X-tweeted the Cybertruck will be the &ldquo;official truck of Mars.&rdquo;
And other Musk projects align with Mars colonization:
<ul>
<li>Starlink for interplanetary communication</li>
<li>The Boring Company for underground Martian habitats</li>
<li>Neuralink for enhancing human capabilities in space</li>
<li>Tesla robots for automated labor on Mars.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;Once you see it, you can&rsquo;t unsee it,&rdquo; Chris says. &ldquo;All these seemingly disparate and random moves are part of [Musk&rsquo;s] master plan.
&ldquo;And there&rsquo;s one thing that&rsquo;s going to pull it all together: AI,&rdquo; Chris concludes. &ldquo;Artificial intelligence isn&rsquo;t just a trend,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;it&rsquo;s the driving force behind the most groundbreaking advancements of today.&rdquo;

And don&rsquo;t forget Musk is about to reveal another huge piece of the puzzle tomorrow at Tesla&rsquo;s AI-themed investor day event.
Of course, Musk&rsquo;s companies can&rsquo;t do it alone. Tesla might well be partnering with a small AI company. Without it, Musk&rsquo;s plans would be dead in the water.
Says James Altucher: &ldquo;If Musk mentions this stock by name tomorrow when he gives his speech in Burbank, California, shares of this AI stock could explode.&rdquo;
Of course, the time to be in position is before Musk starts name-dropping. James urges you to <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2366069">click here and check out this talk with his top tech analyst Ray Blanco while there&rsquo;s still time</a>.

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />United States v. Google
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Yesterday, the DOJ filed a proposed remedy framework &mdash; &ldquo;asking a judge to force Google to divest parts of its business,&rdquo; according to an article at The Register.
&ldquo;Structural remedies&rdquo; in antitrust cases &ldquo;typically refers to the breaking up of a company into smaller businesses, or divestment of particular assets. In this specific case, that might mean Google's Chrome browser or its Android mobile operating system.
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Within the proposed remedy framework, the DoJ says it is considering remedies to address four categories of harms related to Google's conduct, comprising search distribution and revenue sharing; generation and display of search results; advertising scale and monetization; and accumulation and use of data,&rdquo; The Register says.</li>
</ul>
If the DOJ pushes its case through federal court, &ldquo;it would represent arguably the biggest regulatory intervention in the history of Big Tech,&rdquo; the BBC notes.
In a blog post response, Google&rsquo;s vice president of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, claims &ldquo;government overreach.&rdquo;
(Which is rich coming from the company which quietly jettisoned its &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t be evil&rdquo; motto after partnering with the DOD on <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2018/05/21/bad-70s-flashback/#220">AI-drone tech</a> Project Maven in 2018. And embarrassing itself with the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/ukrainflation#3">ultra-woke AI platform</a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/ukrainflation#3"> Gemini</a> early this year.)
GOOG shares so far today are down about 2%. Taking a look at the overall stock market, the three major U.S. indexes are in the green. The Dow leads the way, up 0.70% to 42,375; at the same time, the Nasdaq and S&amp;P 500 have both gained about 0.50% to 18,270 and 5,780 respectively.
As for commodities, crude&rsquo;s pulled back about 0.50% to $73.17 for a barrel of WTI. (More on oil in a moment.) Gold, too, has pulled back about 0.10% to $2,632.30 per ounce. Silver, however, is up 0.80% to $30.85.
Peeking at crypto, Bitcoin is up 0.10% to $62,250 while Ethereum&rsquo;s up about 1% to $2,460.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />The Optimal &ldquo;Fear Trade&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the ideal fear trade that&rsquo;s ready to blast higher over the next few weeks?&rdquo; asks Paradigm&rsquo;s chart hound Greg &ldquo;Gunner&rdquo; Guenthner.
&ldquo;Of course, the situation in the Middle East is aiding the dramatic rise in oil and energy names&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Goldman Sachs is now warning Brent crude could see $90-plus if Iranian oil comes off the market.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Turning to WTI, buyers have stepped up every time light crude has retreated to the mid-$60 range. And thanks to the fear factor, it has enjoyed a 15% bounce off those lows.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;You simply cannot buy an index fund and expect to capture any returns from the energy sector, especially since many of the most prolific &lsquo;dirty&rsquo; energy names have been purged from the indexes,&rdquo; says Gunner.
&ldquo;Case in point: XOM. The Dow booted Exxon Mobil in 2020 shortly after oil futures went negative in the midst of the pandemic crash. At the time, XOM was trading near 15-year lows.
&ldquo;Not anymore! XOM is casually hitting new all-time highs this week,&rdquo; Gunner says. &ldquo;The stock has now climbed around 300% off its 2020 lows&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1LOkoKaISRcQlu3YyNXSoY/61ff335018b04e02dbd03baf8eab7fa8/Javier.png" alt="javier" width="540px" />
&ldquo;XOM also doubled its Permian Basin holdings after acquiring Pioneer Natural Resources for $60 billion last fall.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;As more investors notice Exxon Mobil&rsquo;s sly breakout, money will flow upstream to the exploration and production industry,&rdquo; adds Gunner.
&ldquo;These are the companies pulling the raw material from the earth: Transocean (RIG), Occidental Petroleum (OXY), Diamondback (FANG) and Marathon Oil Corp. (MRO).
&ldquo;We could also see additional mergers and acquisitions in the sector since ESG makes it more attractive for the majors to acquire, rather than develop, acreage,&rdquo; Gunner notes:
<ul>
<li>The FTC recently approved Chevron&rsquo;s acquisition of Hess</li>
<li>Diamondback Energy closed its merger with Endeavour Energy Resources last month</li>
<li>Even midstreams are merging, with Oneok acquiring Magellan Midstream Partners last fall.</li>
</ul>
Gunner&rsquo;s takeaway: &ldquo;Once money starts pouring in &mdash; combined with a little bit of fear &mdash; we&rsquo;ll know we&rsquo;re in the thick of a strong energy bull,&rdquo; he says.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />&ldquo;Deeply Undervalued Gold Miners&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Despite gold's impressive 27.71% year-to-date gain, mining stocks have lagged behind, creating a compelling investment opportunity.
&ldquo;We believe the stage is set for a powerful advance in gold mining equities,&rdquo; says heavyweight industry analyst John Hathaway, who notes that &ldquo;precious metals mining shares are just beginning to stir.&rdquo;
This disconnect between gold prices and mining stock performance has created what Hathaway calls &ldquo;significant catch-up potential for deeply undervalued gold miners.&rdquo;
Factors supporting Hathaway&rsquo;s outlook include&hellip;
<ol>
<li>Favorable fundamentals: &ldquo;The investment fundamentals for miners have rarely been so favorable against a backdrop of such disinterest.&rdquo; For instance, Q3 2024 average gold prices are up 18.8% year-over-year, which should boost miners' earnings.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="2">Underpriced gold: Many investors remain skeptical about gold's sustainability at current prices, but the mainstream financial media has underreported variables like de-dollarization and central bank buying.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="3">Lack of Western participation: &ldquo;Gold's 78.92% five-year advance has occurred with almost no participation from U.S. and European investors,&rdquo; says Hathaway, suggesting significant potential for inflows when sentiment shifts.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="4">Early-stage bull market: &ldquo;The current bull market for gold is embryonic,&rdquo; he adds, with classic signs like widespread skepticism and under-positioning present.</li>
</ol>
Hathaway concludes: &ldquo;Gold stocks, in our opinion, are coiling for a sharp advance during the remainder of 2024.&rdquo;
But he advises patience: &ldquo;Valuations remain exceptionally attractive [and] the upside potential that likely lies ahead may be well worth any additional wait.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Big Brother: Kuwait and U.K. Editions
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Kuwait will begin enforcing its biometric fingerprinting requirement for citizens who missed the Sept. 30 deadline. 
In fact, nearly 60,000 Kuwaitis failed to register in time, and now the government has set a final deadline of Nov. 1 for citizens to comply.
And the punishment for noncompliance is exceptionally harsh: nothing short of financial cancellation. 
&ldquo;Individuals who have not completed the biometric process are subjected to immediate account freezing and banking transaction suspension,&rdquo; Arab Times reports.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2W9Ht195d07lbLdX8y8Xwo/18525d271e4154e7ab953437df6b7d16/banks.png" alt="banks" width="540px" />

Source: X
Banks are already notifying affected customers that by mid-October, their bank cards will be deactivated.
By Nov. 1? Even in-person withdrawals will be blocked. Plus, the government says it will suspend civil ID cards for non-compliant individuals.
As one might imagine, daily registrations have increased from 600 to 6,000 as people rush to comply.
On a less serious (but still intrusive) note&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Starting Oct.1, 2024, British chicken owners &mdash; namely, backyard enthusiasts who keep 50 or fewer chickens &mdash; are now required to register their birds with the government. 
The regulation, ostensibly aimed at combating bird flu, requires the registration of even a single chicken. The process involves providing contact details and bird location to the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA).
And the rule extends to other domesticated birds as well &mdash; if a pet bird spends any time outdoors, &ldquo;for example to be exercised, trained or taken to bird gatherings or shows,&rdquo; according to guidance at Gov.uk.
Of course, cheeky pranksters briefly crashed the government&rsquo;s website by registering rubber chickens, roast chickens and even chicken nuggets. Well done, you! 
But the law is no joke: Bird owners who run afoul of registration could risk fines of &pound;5,000 or even being cooped up for six months in prison.
What a world&hellip;
Take care, reader. And join us again tomorrow!
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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According to Paradigm editor Chris Campbell, all Elon Musk's ventures are interconnected with the goal of establishing life on Mars.

Musk’s Unified Mars Theory

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Musk&rsquo;s Mission
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />"I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies,&rdquo; wrote the science-fiction legend Douglas Adams, in a collection of essays published shortly after his death in 2001.
Adams&rsquo; rules go like this&hellip;
<ol>
<li>&ldquo;Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="2">&ldquo;Anything that's invented between when you're 15 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.</li>
</ol>
<ol>
<li value="3">&ldquo;Anything invented after you're 35 is against the natural order of things."</li>
</ol>
Adams is a hero of Elon Musk &mdash; now 53 years old. To hear Musk tell it, Adams&rsquo; The Hitchhiker&rsquo;s Guide to the Galaxy helped him through an &ldquo;existential crisis&rdquo; at age 12.
More recently, Musk drew on the punchline to Hitchhiker&rsquo;s plot &mdash; a supercomputer declaring that the answer to the meaning of life is the number 42 &mdash; when choosing the formal launch date of his AI company xAI last year.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5qRPI1KCCFc6KCXEPmwviO/77cf52ddc949319413143f1c5e62f8c4/Elon.png" alt="elon tweet" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> "He's telling me, 'I'm gonna start from scratch an AI company 'cause I don't trust Sam Altman,'" recalls Musk biographer Walter Isaacson.
Isaacson followed Musk around for two years in preparation for the book Elon Musk, published in 2023. He reflected on the experience a few days ago during an interview with CNBC.
As you might be aware, Musk had a hand in the founding of Altman&rsquo;s OpenAI in 2015. They had a falling-out no later than 2020, when Musk hit out at what he thought was OpenAI&rsquo;s lack of transparency. By last year, he sued OpenAI &mdash; accusing it of abandoning its mission to develop AI for the betterment of humanity.
Musk is on record asserting a 10&ndash;20% probability that AI could destroy humanity. To hear Isaacson tell it, Musk has taken it upon himself to &ldquo;come in and save us from hostile AI.
&ldquo;He read Isaac Asimov, he read the robot series, he thought the robots might turn on us" &mdash; a reference to Asimov&rsquo;s collection of short stories I, Robot.
Hmmm&hellip;. it&rsquo;s a little worrisome, this savior complex. It&rsquo;s the same impulse that&rsquo;s driven Bill Gates to muck up everything from public education to public health.
But let&rsquo;s give Musk the benefit of the doubt here, especially ahead of Tesla&rsquo;s AI-themed investor day event two days from now.
As we mentioned last week, the title is a nod to Asimov&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/YNs33VECYrXrvDnYURMXU/3323aa49ca1609664d8f5985c4ee1e29/WeRobot.png" alt="we robot" width="350px" />
Musk is going all-out for this event &mdash; staging it not at a Tesla facility as he has in years gone by but on the Warner Bros. lot in Hollywood.
Paradigm&rsquo;s AI authority James Altucher is convinced it will be revolutionary: &ldquo;This has the potential to not only shake the markets,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but also transform the life of every man, woman and child in America.&rdquo;

If you haven&rsquo;t yet watched our interview with James&rsquo; No. 1 tech analyst Ray Blanco, you need to do so ahead of Musk&rsquo;s announcement on Thursday. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2365629">Click here to watch it right away.</a>

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Resilient Stocks, Resilient Gold
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The resilience of the stock market and gold this month are remarkable in light of a strengthening dollar.
The U.S. dollar index has jumped 2% since the last day of September &mdash; a big jump in a short time when you&rsquo;re talking about currencies.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1uQyOWWIYRAYm38lgOzOjM/2a9e91e6a19a0905bfdc3c66b39cace6/FMF_5Bullets_Chart_1008.png" alt="galloping greenbacks" width="540px" />
A big driver of the move is a fall in the euro &mdash; which makes up 57% of the index.
All else being equal, a stronger dollar translates to weaker stocks and weaker gold. But not now.
The S&amp;P 500&rsquo;s record close on Sept. 30 more or less coincides with the start of the dollar rally spotlighted on the chart. But at 5,726, the index is barely two-thirds of a percent beneath that record. Gold, meanwhile, continues to hold the line on $2,600.
Elsewhere in the markets, Treasury yields continue to creep higher &mdash; the 10-year note now up to 4.05%. Bitcoin has sunk below $63,000. And silver is proving to be much more volatile than gold &mdash; well over $32 at one point on Friday, but well under $31 today.
But the real volatility is in crude &mdash; down $3.29 to $73.85.
There&rsquo;s no obvious news catalyst. Near as we can tell, Mr. Market was anticipating Israel would attack Iran yesterday to coincide with the first anniversary of the Hamas attack inside Israel. When it didn&rsquo;t happen, it was time to mash the &ldquo;sell&rdquo; button.
Not that the escalation risk has abated, of course&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Small-business owners are feeling more uncertain than ever,&rdquo; says Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist at the National Federation of Independent Business.
The NFIB is out with its monthly Small Business Optimism Index. The headline number is up slightly to 91.5 &mdash; still well below the long-term average in this survey, which goes back 50 years now.
Looking under the hood, the number that really stands out is the uncertainty index &mdash; leaping 11 points to a record 103. (In this instance, higher numbers are bad.)
&ldquo;The election will trigger adjustments to plans once the results are known,&rdquo; write Dunkelberg and colleague Holly Wade. &ldquo;The services sector is still holding up, while manufacturing and housing remain weak. In a few weeks, the picture will become much more certain for Main Street firms.&rdquo;
But in the meantime, &ldquo;uncertainty makes owners hesitant to invest in capital spending and inventory, especially as inflation and financing costs continue to put pressure on their bottom lines.&rdquo;
On the part of the survey asking respondents to identify their single most important problem, inflation is tops, cited by 23%. But the labor shortage might be starting to ease, with 17% citing &ldquo;quality of labor&rdquo; as their biggest concern &mdash; down from 21% a month earlier.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Gold Demand High, Gold Supply Low
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />We&rsquo;ve spent a lot of time in recent years underscoring the demand for gold &mdash; and not nearly enough about the supply.
Demand for gold by central bankers is off the charts ever since Washington hit Moscow with unprecedented sanctions after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. For any country not on friendly terms with Washington, gold is an insurance policy.
As for supply&hellip; S&amp;P Global is out with a revealing report about recent gold discoveries. It finds there&rsquo;ve been only five of them since 2020, totaling 17 million ounces.
That&rsquo;s a drop in the proverbial bucket considering 350 deposits were discovered from 1990&ndash;2023 &mdash; totaling 2.9 billion ounces of gold, including past production.
The newer discoveries &ldquo;are scarce and smaller in size,&rdquo; writes S&amp;P&rsquo;s Paul Manalo. &ldquo;None of the discoveries made in the last 10 years have entered the list of the largest 30 gold discoveries, supporting our long-held view that the decade-long focus on older and known deposits limits the chance of finding huge discoveries in early-stage prospects.&rdquo;
His conclusion: &ldquo;The lack of quality discoveries in the recent decade does not bode well for the gold supply.&rdquo;
For years, Paradigm macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards has advised keeping a 10% gold allocation in your portfolio &mdash; preferably in your personal possession, and definitely not in a bank&rsquo;s safe-deposit box.
If you&rsquo;re already there, the next step is a well-chosen speculation in gold mining stocks. And now is an especially good time, since the stocks are lagging the metal and they&rsquo;re poised to play catch-up.
More about that tomorrow&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" /> Malice, Apathy&hellip; or Both?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I've quite a while ago arrived at the expectation that the government is completely apathetic to the suffering of its citizens,&rdquo; a reader writes&hellip; &ldquo;but after seeing the responses to Palestine, Ohio; Lahaina, Hawaii; and now the Carolinas in the wake of Helene I can't help but ask myself, does the current administration actually wish pain and suffering onto the victims of these disasters?
&ldquo;I would have thought this close to an election that now there is a good excuse to spend more money to try to win over the hearts of voters and there would be a concerted effort to combine disaster aid with campaigning. Instead, I hear that the aid money amounts to the pocket lint of the government checkbook, and now there seem to be efforts to stop rescuers from saving people. As if all that weren't enough, I'm hearing Florida is also about to get hit with a massive storm and I can't imagine the quality of the federal aid improving any between now and then.
&ldquo;I know it's said not to attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity, but I don't see why it can't simply be both, especially with how consistent the government responses have been. Why do you think it is that this is what happens every time?&rdquo;
Dave responds: Beats me. To be sure, &ldquo;DEI&rdquo; figures into the equation. Too, a lot of knowledgeable and experienced boomers are retiring &mdash; and there aren&rsquo;t enough Gen-Xers coming up to take their place.
I can say with certainty it&rsquo;s not the government steering hurricanes in the direction of &ldquo;red&rdquo; enclaves.
Meanwhile, Milton continues to make a beeline for the Tampa Bay area, which your editor called home for about three years in the &rsquo;90s. Even if the winds diminish, the surge is shaping up to be fearsome. Godspeed to anyone trying to get out of harm&rsquo;s way&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Vote &ldquo;Awake&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On the subject of politics, a reader writes: &ldquo;Us? We're proudly displaying our &lsquo;Giant Comet 2024&rsquo; sign in the front yard.&rdquo;
Heh &mdash; I invoked that one in bumper sticker form <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/39-days">over the summer</a>. I like this one too&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7r6IQPSJiouV5X5arq36KU/0dea3975aa577ad6992fa5801082970a/vote.png" alt="vote" width="350px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Meanwhile, after I took incoming flak from anti-Trumpers in recent days, the pro-Trumpers have to weigh in following the mailbag in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/elon-musk-counter-elite">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;How many wars happened during Trump's administration?&rdquo; asks one. Another vouches for Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;antiwar&rdquo; bonafides by saying &ldquo;when necessary, the decision is made without pre-disclosure and firmly.&rdquo; Meanwhile, one of our regulars ventures that Trump&rsquo;s approach to war and peace is &ldquo;peace through strength.&rdquo;
Maybe it&rsquo;s just me, but &ldquo;peace through strength&rdquo; does not entail 750 military bases in over 80 countries. Donald Trump did nothing to dismantle that apparatus during his first term, and he&rsquo;s made no promises to do so during his second.
Meanwhile, this &ldquo;he didn&rsquo;t start any new wars!&rdquo; thing is so tiresome.
He tore up arms control treaties with Moscow. He permanently stationed U.S. troops on Russia&rsquo;s borders. He sent lethal weaponry to Ukraine &mdash; a reckless step Barack Obama refused to take.
In the Middle East, he carried on Obama&rsquo;s policy of supporting Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s genocidal war in Yemen &mdash; directly with targeting assistance from the U.S military and indirectly with weapons sales.
I could go on, but you get the idea. I hope.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> A final thought, adding to yesterday&rsquo;s Bullet No. 1 about <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/elon-musk-counter-elite">the &ldquo;counter-elites&rdquo;</a> who are gathering around Trump&hellip;
The co-chair of Trump&rsquo;s transition team, named by Trump in August, is Howard Lutnick &mdash; CEO of the Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald. From the Financial Times&hellip;
<blockquote>Lutnick said he had given more than $10 million to Trump&rsquo;s 2024 effort and another $500,000 for the transition, and had raised about $75 million for the campaign overall.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The investor, who has known the Republican nominee for years and even appeared in 2008 on Trump&rsquo;s NBC show The Celebrity Apprentice, previously donated to Democrats, including Hillary Clinton.</blockquote>
So like Marc Andreessen, here&rsquo;s someone else who supported Clinton only eight years ago but has decided to glom onto Trump because that&rsquo;s where he sees his bread buttered now.
And Trump is perfectly fine with that arrangement. He welcomes anyone into his circle who engages in enough flattery.
Interviewed last week by our favorite political reporter Michael Tracey, Lutnick said he&rsquo;s building a roster of potential appointees with &ldquo;deep, deep national security experience&rdquo; and &ldquo;deep, deep defense experience.&rdquo; He also confirmed that Jared Kushner is &ldquo;actively helping&rdquo; him to find &ldquo;talent.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1QZeTCIfAnrL2UJ6nmocek/f2c4522e7d20ebf6501a21286a464df1/michael.png" alt="michael tweet" width="540px" />
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 2269526291

According to Musk’s biographer, Elon has taken it upon himself to “come in and save us from hostile AI.”

Starting an AI Company From Scratch 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Elon Musk, Leader of the Counter-Elites
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Has a billionaire (other than Donald Trump) ever been this overtly political?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4FQR7a9iI6al5YH7w2Gck6/e3efb4096a0397f6a6edff8f1e3d94b7/the-telegraph.png" alt="the telegraph" width="540px" />
Through their foundations and other vehicles, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett wield their might in more subtle ways than presidential politics. You can even say the same of Michael Bloomberg, his own short-lived run for president in 2019&ndash;2020 notwithstanding.
&ldquo;Elon Musk joined Donald Trump onstage at a rally on Saturday night,&rdquo; reports The Telegraph, &ldquo;as the former president returned to the scene where he was fired at by a would-be assassin&hellip;
&ldquo;There were clear differences this time around. The ex-president was speaking from a podium encased in bulletproof glass. The rooftop used by [Thomas] Crooks had been blocked from view by shipping containers and haulage trucks.&rdquo;
But it&rsquo;s Musk&rsquo;s bunny-hopping appearance that commands our attention this morning.
Not because he said anything unique or newsworthy. (He called this year &ldquo;the most important election of our lifetime.&rdquo; Musk was born in 1971.)
No, it&rsquo;s more than anything he said&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Whether he planned it or not, Musk has made himself the face of a counter-elite in the United States &mdash; maybe even more than Trump.
Counter-elite is a term coined by the Russian-American researcher and writer Peter Turchin.
In books like 2023&rsquo;s End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration, Turchin lays out a thesis that you can&rsquo;t have a civil war without competing groups of elites.
As he sees it, a united ruling elite can maintain control over a population indefinitely even in the face of major grassroots opposition. It&rsquo;s only when the elites start fighting among themselves that the edifice starts to crack.
As we&rsquo;ve chronicled before, there was almost no billionaire support for Donald Trump in 2016. The Wall Street Journal reported that nine of the 10 biggest donors gave to Hillary Clinton. (Home Depot&rsquo;s Bernie Marcus was the 10th.) Among donations of $1 million or more, Clinton collected $180 million, compared with Trump&rsquo;s $33 million.
Eight years later, Trump&rsquo;s elite backers include Musk&hellip; the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen&hellip; and hedge fund operators Bill Ackman and Paul Singer. Andreessen was a Clinton supporter eight years ago. Ackman, too, has a history of backing Democrats and he supported Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP primaries. Eight years ago, Singer was a Never-Trump Republican.
But Musk is sui generis among this group. Only he commands the status of a rock-star CEO, maybe the first since Steve Jobs. His ranking as the world&rsquo;s richest man &mdash; at $244 billion, he comfortably outpaces No. 2 Jeff Bezos on the Forbes 400 &mdash; only adds to the mystique.
And he was largely apolitical until a few years ago; near as we can tell his &ldquo;red pill&rdquo; moment was when he kept Tesla&rsquo;s factory in Fremont, California open in May 2020, defying Alameda County&rsquo;s lockdown orders.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Earlier this year, we conducted an informal, open-ended survey of reader opinion about Musk.
We welcomed everyone&rsquo;s input, but we were especially interested in the opinions of the people who&rsquo;d come aboard via Altucher&rsquo;s Investment Network starting in late 2023.
At the risk of overgeneralizing, this is a group that bristles at the mention of anything adjacent to politics in this e-letter. Some are openly hostile to Donald Trump.
But in the main, the opinion toward Musk was favorable and the criticism was measured. I don&rsquo;t remember anyone saying words to the effect of I hate that fascist and I will unsubscribe at the next mention of him.
This is good and healthy. Because while politics does alter flows of money, you should strive to avoid letting it affect your investment decisions.
Especially in light of Musk&rsquo;s next big public appearance this coming Thursday.
With that in mind, did you miss our Elon Musk&rsquo;s Road to $1 Trillion Summit last night?
There, we shared the results from months of research into the big Tesla announcement Musk is set to make on Thursday&hellip; and why we believe one tiny AI stock is essential to Tesla&rsquo;s plans.
We&rsquo;re looking at profit potential of 10X in the next year and 50X beyond that.
It&rsquo;s still not too late to get caught up. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2364862">Click here to get started</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Bull Market Still Intact
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Even with the distinct possibility of a short-term sell-off, I&rsquo;d caution you not to bet against this bull market,&rdquo; says Enrique Abeyta &mdash; the newest addition to the Paradigm Press team.
At one time, Enrique managed over $1 billion for a hedge-fund outfit. Like many denizens of the newsletter biz, he&rsquo;s happier writing for an audience of everyday folks like you than he ever was amid the backstabbing, brownnosing culture of Wall Street. Among his bang-on market calls in recent years was amid the COVID crash: Within three days of the bottom in March 2020, he said stocks were a &ldquo;screaming buy.&rdquo;
Back to the present: &ldquo;Going into October, the stock market has been higher for five months in a row,&rdquo; he says in our new Truth &amp; Trends e-letter.
&ldquo;This has happened 28 times since 1954. And in all instances except one, it was higher one year later.&rdquo; (The lone exception was 2018.)
What&rsquo;s more, Enrique shares a chart from the legendary market analyst Ed Yardeni &mdash; depicting every bull market since the 1960s.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6cxsiF0EFROhnLMUK3UuTF/c73a729325dd345773dac9e3b6bffb3d/S_P500Picture1.png" alt="S&amp;P 500" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The current bull run that started in October 2022 has the stock market up a little over 60%,&rdquo; Enrique says. &ldquo;Only one of the previous bull markets has been up less than that. In fact, the average bull market in the last six decades has gone up more than 200%. And bull markets have also been getting longer and stronger.&rdquo;
That said, don&rsquo;t discount the likelihood of autumn volatility. &ldquo;In the near term,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;sentiment has gotten quite stretched. It&rsquo;s now back to levels where the stock market has previously corrected.&rdquo;
Possible catalysts for a downdraft include an escalating Middle East conflict &mdash; about which more shortly &mdash; and the proverbial October surprise ahead of Election Day.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For the moment, though, the stock market is quiet &mdash; the major averages down a half-percent or less to start the week. At 5,727 the S&amp;P 500 sits only 35 points below its record close notched a week ago today.
Gold has sold off below $2,650 and silver has been slammed back below $32. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has rallied to within $250 of the $64,000 mark.
The biggest selling is in the bond market, pushing prices down and yields up. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is back above 4% for the first time in over two months.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Oil: Geopolitical Risk Still Underpriced
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Crude is up another two bucks to start the week, a barrel of West Texas intermediate now $76.56 &mdash; the highest since late August.
Today is the anniversary of the Hamas attack inside Israel a year ago. The consensus among Israeli politicos a year later was captured last week by Naftali Bennett, who was prime minister for a year in 2021&ndash;22: &ldquo;Israel has now its greatest opportunity in 50 years, to change the face of the Middle East.&rdquo;
Presumably that entails Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. Maybe Iraq and Syria too. Definitely Iran&rsquo;s nuclear program &mdash; even though every year since 2007 U.S. intelligence has said there&rsquo;s no evidence Tehran is working to make a bomb.
Assuming this &ldquo;makeover&rdquo; can be accomplished at all, it can happen only with support and cooperation from Washington &mdash; which would open up U.S. aircraft and bases in the region to attack.
In which case, $76.56 doesn&rsquo;t begin to reflect the risk.
Even the mainstream is alert to the possibility: &ldquo;$100 Oil Could Be the October Surprise No One Wanted,&rdquo; says a CNN headline.
&ldquo;Investors, having been burned by prior geopolitical scares that quickly fizzled, have grown numb to the cascade of crises around the world. This time they&rsquo;re waiting for evidence of actual supply disruptions before bidding up the price of crude oil.&rdquo;
Tehran could, if it wanted, easily shut down the Strait of Hormuz &mdash; only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. Shut it down and large quantities of crude from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Kuwait would be stranded.
&ldquo;In such a scenario, global oil markets would be in uncharted waters,&rdquo; says a report from Citigroup &mdash; &ldquo;with oil prices likely experiencing a sharp and significant spike well past previous record highs.&rdquo;
How high is that? The record remains $147 a barrel shortly before the 2008 financial crisis went critical.
That would be bad enough, but if you adjust for inflation it&rsquo;s $215.
For the moment gasoline prices are under $3 a gallon in 18 states.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Update: Helene, Quartz, Semiconductors
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The secretive Belgian conglomerate that controls the world&rsquo;s sole source of high-purity quartz reports &ldquo;significant progress&rdquo; in recovering from Hurricane Helene.
As we mentioned a week ago today, the world&rsquo;s semiconductor industry is surprisingly dependent on a mine site just north of Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The quartz that emerges from there is essential to make silicon wafers for semiconductor manufacturing.
Sibelco, the company that owns the mining complex, acknowledges that the area was &ldquo;hit particularly hard.&rdquo;
However, &ldquo;The initial assessment indicates that our operating facilities in the Spruce Pine region have only sustained minor damage,&rdquo; the company said in a statement issued Friday. &ldquo;Detailed assessments are ongoing.&rdquo;
Not a lot of transparency there. Author Ed Conway, who spotlighted Spruce Pine in his 2023 book Material World, believes it will be several months before the operation is back at pre-Helene capacity.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s quite hard to imagine this won&rsquo;t have at least some impact,&rdquo; he writes at his Substack site.
To be continued&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Middle East Mess
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />On the subject of the Middle East war metastasizing (and potentially driving oil over $100)... a reader responds to the mailbag section in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/what-is-sam-altman-afraid-of">Friday&rsquo;s edition</a>&hellip;
&ldquo;Dave, I do not see how anyone can say that President Trump cannot handle Mideast policy better than Vice President Harris. He has already proven it during his first term, when there was much less trouble in southern Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza and Iran (primarily because he prevented Iran from financing terrorism to the degree we see at present).
&ldquo;Furthermore, I have been an evangelical Christian for 40 years and lived in four different parts of the country. I have yet to find any who believe American foreign policy governs or influences the timetable for the return of Jesus. We do not believe you can play wag the dog with God. You do hear about such people on mainstream media documentaries, but I can tell that a lot of those people and all of their detractors generally have no understanding of the fundamentals of the faith and should be discounted as imposters.
&ldquo;They may have churches, but they are not accurate representations of evangelical Christians and do not have the numbers to be the majority of evangelicals in President Trump's base, much less the majority of his base as a whole.
&ldquo;Thanks for the free flow of opinion.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Far be it from me to get in the middle of the internecine conflicts of someone else&rsquo;s faith. Suffice to say that figures like Pastor John Hagee play an outsized and pernicious role in U.S. foreign policy under Republican administrations.
As for Trump&hellip; he nearly launched airstrikes on Iran in the summer of 2019 because Tehran shot down an American drone. It appears the only reason he didn&rsquo;t follow through is that he turned on Fox News &mdash; and Tucker Carlson talked him down during the 8:00 p.m. EDT hour.
(Incredibly, the Democrats&rsquo; platform this summer slammed Trump for holding his fire on that occasion&hellip;)
But forget 2019: Just last week Trump was egging on Israel to &ldquo;hit&rdquo; Iran&rsquo;s nuclear-energy facilities and &ldquo;worry about the rest later.&rdquo; Which, to reiterate today&rsquo;s Bullet No. 3, cannot happen without U.S. support.
Remind me again how Trump is the &ldquo;antiwar&rdquo; candidate?
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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Whether he planned it or not, Musk has made himself the face of a counter-elite in the United States — maybe even more than Trump.

Elon Musk, Counter-Elite

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />What Is Sam Altman Afraid Of?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Sam Altman&rsquo;s OpenAI needs another round of funding. This time, the pitch he&rsquo;s making to prospective investors comes with major strings attached.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5JrUX6i0MOuDSajm9DzyJy/37dce0f3d9a49771e91a2ceb98be9e5f/ft-Headline.png" alt="FT Headline" width="400px" />
&ldquo;OpenAI has asked investors to avoid backing rival start-ups such as Anthropic and Elon Musk&rsquo;s xAI,&rdquo; reports the Financial Times &mdash; &ldquo;as it secures $6.6 billion in new funding and seeks to shut out challengers to its early lead in generative artificial intelligence.&rdquo;
No, this is not standard operating procedure. As the FT explains&hellip;
<blockquote>Venture firms are party to sensitive information about the companies they invest in, and close relationships with one company can make it difficult or contentious to also back a rival.</blockquote>
<blockquote>But exclusivity is rarely insisted on, according to VCs, and many leading firms have spread their bets in certain sectors. Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, for instance, have backed multiple AI start-ups, including both OpenAI and xAI. [Emphasis ours]</blockquote>
The FT&rsquo;s spin is that OpenAI can get away with its demands &ldquo;because investors believe the company could dominate the next wave of AI innovation, which they argue will be as significant a shift in consumer behavior as the internet or mobile.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />That&rsquo;s one possible interpretation. Another is that Altman is using what little leverage he&rsquo;s got with investors before it slips away forever.
If you follow the fates and fortunes of the AI biz, you&rsquo;re probably aware that OpenAI has had no shortage of drama in recent months.
Of course, there was the bizarre boardroom coup late last year &mdash; in which Altman was briefly removed and then reinstated. But this year has seen several of Altman&rsquo;s top lieutenants bolt &mdash; including chief technology officer Mira Murati just last week.
Too, there&rsquo;s Altman&rsquo;s desire to transition OpenAI from a nonprofit to a for-profit model.
It&rsquo;s those plans that prompted Elon Musk &mdash; a co-founder of OpenAI back in 2015 &mdash; to sue OpenAI two months ago. Musk says Altman has committed a &ldquo;deceit of Shakespearean proportions.&rdquo;
But never mind the petty personal dramas &mdash; which by themselves would be enough to give prospective investors pause.
What&rsquo;s really got Altman&rsquo;s boxers in a wad is the revelation Musk is about to unleash six days from now at Tesla&rsquo;s investor day event. Its title is a nod to the science-fiction legend Isaac Asimov&rsquo;s collection of short stories called I, Robot.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6X8ts2wpROEJIQTMXRxrbJ/438e56b9b4d9d5b1c6269a1a4614f9e3/we_robot.jpg" alt="we, robot" width="250px" />
As we said yesterday, Musk is promising, &ldquo;This will be one for the history books&rdquo; when he takes the stage in Burbank, California next Thursday.
And it&rsquo;s the considered opinion of my senior Paradigm Press colleagues that Musk is not blowing smoke.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/47Dew1sWQ9FyvYyOLesXtI/24ee2e2c80a5957e9b6b39b1cea6990f/elon_smoking.png" alt="Elon" width="350px" />
(Yeah, I couldn&rsquo;t resist.)
Here&rsquo;s what my colleagues anticipate: Musk will take the wraps off an entirely new kind of AI. Something none of us has seen before. The most powerful AI ever. A breakthrough on par with the web 30 years ago.
And, by implication, something that will erase all of Sam Altman&rsquo;s advantages in the realm of generative AI. (It might even render the term &ldquo;generative AI&rdquo; obsolete.)
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Jobs: Good News Is Bad News
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The stock market reaction to a blowout jobs report is&hellip; tepid.
It being the first Friday of October, the government is regaling us with the September job numbers. The wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured 254,000 new jobs for the month &mdash; way more than any Wall Street economist was expecting. The three-month average works out to a healthy 186,000 &mdash; adequate to keep up with population growth.
And unlike in recent months, there&rsquo;s no divergence between the &ldquo;establishment&rdquo; survey of business owners &mdash; the number the media usually touts &mdash; and the &ldquo;household&rdquo; survey.
If anything, the household survey suggests an even more robust labor market &mdash; job gains totaling 698,000.
The official unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The major U.S. stock indexes popped in reaction to the job numbers&hellip; only to give most of it back as the morning wore on.
At last check, the S&amp;P 500 has inched up less than a tenth of a percent, back above 5,700. If that number holds, it won&rsquo;t surpass last Friday&rsquo;s record weekly close.
The muted reaction makes sense, in its own twisted good-news-is-bad-news way: If the labor market is no longer cooling off, there&rsquo;s a risk the inflation rate might start moving higher. If inflation starts taking off again, that throws a wrench in the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s plans to keep lowering interest rates and funneling more easy money toward Wall Street.
Thus, the betting in the futures market assesses 95% odds that the Fed will cut its benchmark fed funds rate only a quarter-percentage point next month &mdash; not the half point that Wall Street would prefer.
There&rsquo;s not much movement to report in the precious metals either: Gold sits at $2,655 while silver is a tantalizing nickel away from $32. In the crypto space, Bitcoin is likewise quiet at just over $61,000.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />One uncertainty hanging over the markets this week is now resolved: As you&rsquo;re likely aware, the dockworker strike is over less than 72 hours after it began.
Technically the strike is suspended until Jan. 15; the two sides came to an agreement on pay while they&rsquo;ll continue to hammer out everything else, especially automation.
Exactly why the voluble union boss Harold Daggett was so quick to back off his maximalist demands, he&rsquo;s not saying.
As for the other big uncertainty hanging over markets this week, read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />&ldquo;I Think That Would Be a Little&hellip;&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Update: The price of oil did not leap to $73.71 yesterday because Washington and Tel Aviv are collaborating on potential attacks targeting Iranian oil facilities.
No, the reason oil leapt to $73.71 yesterday was that Joe Biden, asked about the subject, spat out gibberish &mdash; reminding everyone that a dementia patient is still in charge of the &ldquo;rules-based international order&rdquo; for the next 3&frac12; months.
What he mumbled was impossible to capture in print. Here&rsquo;s how the Financial Times tried:
<blockquote>Asked whether the U.S. would support Israel striking Iran&rsquo;s oil facilities, Biden said: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in discussion of that,&rdquo; although in his truncated comment the U.S. president went on to say: &ldquo;I think that would be a little... anyway.&rdquo;</blockquote>
And The Wall Street Journal:
<blockquote>Asked if he would support Israel attacking Iran&rsquo;s oil facilities, Biden replied, &ldquo;We&rsquo;re discussing that,&rdquo; before adding, &ldquo;I think that would be a little&hellip;&rdquo; and trailing off.</blockquote>
Here&rsquo;s the video. You try making heads or tails of it&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/45LYnUGTfWqZ8G41kL6584/9b828bc67a73fa063415823a8ce4607f/biden_vid.png" alt="Biden Video" />
Combine a president incapable of spitting out a coherent thought on a critical matter of war and peace&hellip; and a media that&rsquo;s too incompetent to press him with a follow-up question&hellip; and you get a dramatic spike in the oil price.
And that spike is holding today, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate up to $74.42. For perspective, it was well under $67 on Tuesday before the latest round of escalations in the Middle East.
This much is certain, as the independent journalist Max Blumenthal tweets: &ldquo;Biden has been threatening to blow up the energy infrastructure of Official Enemies since just before the Nord Stream attacks.&rdquo;
Of course, even addressing these market-moving mumblings opens me up to accusations of &ldquo;bias for Trump&rdquo; &mdash; about which more in today&rsquo;s mailbag.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Texas Tells Big Tech &ldquo;You&rsquo;re On Your Own&rdquo; for Electricity
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The following is one of our periodic reminders that AI threatens to collapse an already-fragile power grid.
The head of the utility regulator in Texas is putting Big Tech on notice: Don&rsquo;t expect to build new data centers near existing power plants in the Lone Star State.
Yesterday, Texas Public Utility Commission chair Thomas Gleeson attended a conference of the Gulf Coast Power Association. According to Bloomberg, &ldquo;AI dominated the discussion.&rdquo;
On the sidelines of that discussion, Gleeson said if data centers are built near existing power plants, it would threaten the integrity of the whole system. Big Tech will have to build its own power plants instead &mdash; at least for the next 12&ndash;15 months.
&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t afford to lose any of our resources off the system at this point, especially given those load-growth projections,&rdquo; Gleeson told Bloomberg.
In other words, Amazon won&rsquo;t be able to strike the kind of deal it did in Pennsylvania &mdash; getting exclusive access to the Susquehanna nuclear power plant. Or the kind Microsoft also got in Pennsylvania, in which the undamaged reactor at Three Mile Island will be reopened.
If you&rsquo;re not yet up to speed on the fragility of the power grid and the prodigious new demands that AI will place on it&hellip; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-monster-that-ate-the-power-grid-ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener">our most recent in-depth treatment was in July</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Politics, Again&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Politics is rearing its ugly head in the mailbag again. I suppose it&rsquo;s inevitable &mdash; even after something as relatively anodyne as <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/teslas-endgame" target="_blank" rel="noopener">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
Under the subject line &ldquo;Bias for Trump,&rdquo; one reader wrote: &ldquo;I like the market news and stock info. I don't come for the politics. Please tone down on the ungrounded political commentary. Thanks!&rdquo;
[I do appreciate the friendly exclamation point&hellip;]
But someone else &mdash; perhaps in response to yesterday&rsquo;s mailbag section? &mdash; wasn&rsquo;t so sure about the &ldquo;bias.&rdquo; As he wrote, &ldquo;Hmmm&hellip; Don&rsquo;t you prefer Trump over Harris&hellip;?&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />And then there was one of our regulars, who it&rsquo;s fair to say leans left&hellip;
&ldquo;Quite surprised you published the quote from Ryan Grim, who I do not know. He is either a simpleton, or a writer with a distinct political agenda. To break down the Middle East conflict and the U.S. role in it into only two distinct possibilities is pure deception. Even more perplexing is the reason that you published it without question. Your political agenda to knock down the Biden/Harris administration, truth be damned, is not lost on your readership. We are not all quite as dumb as you think we are.
&ldquo;I suppose this might be the time to ask you the defining question that J.D. Vance had such a difficult time with. Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election, yes or no? If you answer that you are looking to the future, we know where you stand. At the risk of upsetting a large conservative portion of your readership, I dare you to answer with a yes or no, no qualifiers! Good luck.
&ldquo;Don't fret too much, however: Many of us enjoy the newsletter enough regardless that we are willing to overlook any political opinions, so perhaps others will feel the same and stay with you.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />This is the problem I&rsquo;ve faced all year: I say something critical about one candidate, and people jump to the conclusion I&rsquo;m in the tank for the other. Such is the present polarized atmosphere.
The problem is made worse by the fact that Trump is not currently exercising power and Joe Biden is. Biden (or unknown others acting in his name) issues market-moving and world-changing orders; it&rsquo;s inevitable I&rsquo;d subject him to more scrutiny at this time.
With that precis, let&rsquo;s take the third reader&rsquo;s concerns item by item.
First, Ryan Grim is one of the most vital independent journalists on the scene today. He recently co-founded Drop Site News after spending seven years at The Intercept and eight years before that at HuffPost. (Not exactly right-wing outlets, either of those&hellip;)
To be clear, I have less than zero confidence that Trump can &ldquo;manage&rdquo; U.S. affairs in the Middle East any better than Biden/Harris. If anything, he&rsquo;s even more likely to gin up a disastrous war in the region to placate his most important donor (Miriam Adelson, widow of the pro-Israel casino magnate Sheldon Adelson) and his base of end-times evangelicals who think U.S. foreign policy should be an instrument to hasten the return of Jesus.
The 2020 election? To the extent I&rsquo;ve looked into it, I&rsquo;m not persuaded Trump won &mdash; and I mocked the more ludicrous claims of Sidney Powell et al. in real-time (<a href="https://5minforecast.com/2020/11/20/rigged/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a> and <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2020/11/23/mainlining-hopium/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>). At the same time, it&rsquo;s risible to suggest that what happened on Jan. 6, 2021 was an &ldquo;insurrection.&rdquo;
Of course, that&rsquo;s a position that pleases no one on either side of the divide. But reality doesn&rsquo;t care about your tribal loyalties.
In any event, I thank the third reader for his polite engagement and continued readership. As always, we have only two aims here each day &mdash; 1) that you learn at least one interesting thing you didn&rsquo;t know before and 2) that you decide to come back the next day.
At least for this one critic, it seems we succeed?

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Sam Altman’s OpenAI needs another round of funding. This time, the pitch he’s making to prospective investors comes with major strings attached.

What Is Sam Altman Afraid Of? 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Tesla&rsquo;s Numbers Are a Nothingburger
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> In a case of Mr. Market asking, &ldquo;So what have you done for me lately?&rdquo;... shares of Tesla took a 3.5% dump yesterday. (And they&rsquo;re down another 2% today).
TSLA reported its quarterly vehicles-delivered numbers. They were in line with the expectations of Wall Street analysts &mdash; up 6.4% from a year ago.
So what&rsquo;s the problem? Well, the total for the first nine months of 2024 is still behind last year&rsquo;s pace. If the company is going to beat 2023&rsquo;s total, it&rsquo;s going to have to step on the gas &mdash; er, I guess, the accelerator.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> What are we to make of Tesla here in late 2024, the share price still well off its 2021 peak?
Your editor has been of many minds about this company over the years, informed by colleagues both past and present who have conflicting &mdash; and vigorous &mdash; opinions.
One of them first recommended Tesla to his readers in 2010, about six months after it went public. The reaction was largely skeptical, given a readership well aware of Tesla&rsquo;s reliance on generous government subsidies &mdash; including the tax breaks for buyers of electric cars. &ldquo;Never got so many letters telling us how dumb we were,&rdquo; this individual recalled.
But they didn&rsquo;t mind riding TSLA to 1,005% gains by mid-2016.
All along the way, though, skeptical colleagues said something didn&rsquo;t add up.
They didn&rsquo;t necessarily agree with the hard-core &ldquo;Tesla shorts&rdquo; who asserted Elon Musk is a fraud. But they also said it made zero sense to label Tesla a &ldquo;tech company&rdquo; &mdash; lumped in with Google and Facebook &mdash; when Tesla operates in the very capital-intensive business of building cars.
Thus, they argued, it made even less sense that Tesla&rsquo;s market cap &mdash; currently just under $800 billion &mdash; nearly equals the rest of the top 10 global automakers combined.
How can the story end, they ask, other than in tears?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The counter I&rsquo;ve heard to that argument &mdash; and the only one that rings true for me &mdash; is this: Tesla isn&rsquo;t actually an EV company and it&rsquo;s not trying to compete in the same realm with Toyota and GM.
Rather, Elon Musk launched an automaker with a long-term plan for total domination in a specialized field of AI &mdash; an entirely new kind of AI, potentially the most powerful AI humanity has ever seen.
A former colleague likens Musk&rsquo;s aims to those of Amazon in the 1990s &mdash; selling books with a long-term plan for total domination in the field of online retail.
Makes sense. The knock on Tesla for years was that it didn&rsquo;t make a profit. But still another old friend would remind me that was the knock on Amazon during AMZN&rsquo;s peak growth years. Amazon could have easily achieved a cushy 10% profit margin during that time if not for Jeff Bezos&rsquo; relentless expansion into new lines of business.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> With all of that as prologue, Elon Musk is set to make an earth-shaking announcement one week from today &mdash; Thursday Oct. 10. &ldquo;This will be one for the history books,&rdquo; he says.
And after a careful assessment of his claims, several of my current colleagues &mdash; who rarely agree on anything &mdash; concur that this is one time Musk absolutely is not blowing smoke.
Yes, Tesla shares should perform well on the heels of this announcement &mdash; certainly well enough to make the sell-off yesterday and today a footnote in the company&rsquo;s history.
But the really big money &mdash; the kind of money that could dramatically alter your retirement plans for the better &mdash; will come from a tiny AI company that my colleagues believe holds the key to Musk&rsquo;s plans.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Dockworker Strike: Election Wild Card
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> To the markets &mdash; where the stupid election looms large over both of the economic wild cards dominating the week&rsquo;s news.
&ldquo;It is now more likely we are looking at weeks rather than days as a duration for this conflict,&rdquo; Vespucci Maritime CEO Lars Jensen says of the port strike on the East and Gulf Coasts.
That&rsquo;s because for the moment, the International Longshoremen&rsquo;s Association has the tacit support of both presidential candidates.
&ldquo;American workers should be able to negotiate for better wages, especially since the shipping companies are mostly foreign flag vessels,&rdquo; says Donald Trump.
Presumably speaking on behalf of the Kamala Harris campaign, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre promises that Joe Biden will not invoke the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 &mdash; ordering the 45,000 strikers back to work for an 80-day &ldquo;cooling off period.&rdquo;
Taft-Hartley has long been anathema to organized labor; the last time a president invoked it was Dubya Bush during a West Coast dockworker strike in 2002.
With at least wink-and-a-nod support from both presidential candidates, the ILA is unlikely to budge in its talks with the U.S. Maritime Alliance.
And even if everyday consumers aren&rsquo;t following every detail of the back-and-forth, their collective spidey-sense is making for epic-long checkout lines at Costco&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1eqV28lqKxUFlsl78TGv0M/d6f20d0ef49f0251b77b36a768970f53/FMF-Issue-10-03-24_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Colleague Chris Cimorelli of our Microcap Millionaire service points out that all of this comes at a potentially dicey time for the Democrats and organized labor; this year the Teamsters union opted to withhold an endorsement for president for the first time since 1996.
And we&rsquo;ll add this: Polling data suggests that private-sector unionized workers are leaning Republican to a degree they never have before. Not that there are many of them left: While unionized workers made up over 35% of the private-sector workforce in the mid-1950s, today it&rsquo;s closer to 7%.
(The political leanings of government union workers? Still overwhelmingly Democratic&hellip;)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Whether it&rsquo;s jitters about the strike and supply chains&hellip; or jitters about the Middle East (more about that in Bullet No. 3)... or another factor entirely&hellip; something is keeping a lid on the stock market this week.
The S&amp;P 500 is down about a third of a percent on the day. At 5,690 it&rsquo;s also down about 1% from its record close on Monday.
A more decisive move &mdash; up or down &mdash; could come tomorrow with the release of the September jobs numbers.
Gold is hanging tough at $2,649 &mdash; silver likewise at $31.76. The precious metals&rsquo; resilience this week is notable given a rally in the U.S. dollar relative to other major currencies; under ordinary circumstances, a rising dollar would crush gold and silver.
The price of platinum, meanwhile, has sunk below $1,000 &mdash; a level that&rsquo;s been overhead resistance since June. We bring up platinum this morning because a little over a year after Costco started selling 1-ounce gold bars, it&rsquo;s adding 1-ounce platinum bars to the lineup.
Whether they come from Costco or someone else, platinum might be a bargain right now. At times its dollar price has equaled that of gold; until about 2008, it was pricier than gold. But today gold sells for 2.6 times the price of platinum. If platinum starts playing catch-up, look out.
Bitcoin keeps drifting down, now in danger of cracking below $60,000&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Oil&hellip; and More Election Uncertainty
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The ever-louder war drums in the Middle East have pushed a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude past $73 &mdash; the highest in nearly a month, up from $67.50 Tuesday morning.
The Axios news site reports that Israel is planning to launch a &ldquo;significant retaliation&rdquo; attack on Iran. That&rsquo;s according to anonymous Israeli sources who acknowledge such a gambit could lead to a full-blown regional war directly involving the United States.
(Brings to mind the old joke about Let&rsquo;s you and him fight!)
After Iran lobbed about 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, "There will be severe consequences for this Iranian attack and we will work with Israel to make sure that is the case."
(Hello? How about working with Congress as the Constitution requires?)
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6X9shdHWB6hOcUr3EalzKA/0d96c1509946a96a9826842e719dedf7/FMF-Issue-10-03-24_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Anyway, among the targets the Israelis have in mind are oil production sites inside Iran. &ldquo;While Israel is going to respond on its own,&rdquo; says Axios, &ldquo;it wants to coordinate its plans with the U.S. because of the strategic implications of the situation.&rdquo;
Hmmm&hellip; From where we sit, it&rsquo;s hard to imagine Team Biden egging on Israel&rsquo;s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to start bombing Iranian oil facilities barely a month before Election Day; the resulting higher gasoline prices would be a major gift to Trump, no?
On the other hand, it&rsquo;s very easy to imagine Netanyahu going ahead with it anyway, since it&rsquo;s an open secret he prefers Trump over Harris. Just sayin&rsquo;.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />There&rsquo;s no disaster on Earth so bad that pettifogging bureaucrats can&rsquo;t make it worse &mdash; as we&rsquo;re learning in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
&ldquo;An experienced helicopter pilot's mission to rescue flood victims was abruptly halted after he was threatened with arrest,&rdquo; says a story at Firehouse &mdash; a website devoted to news about firefighters and EMTs.
&ldquo;Hearing about stranded people frantically begging for help, he decided to fly his own helicopter to assist. He knew it was going to be the only way out for many.&rdquo;
Pilot and volunteer firefighter Jordan Seidhom checked for restrictions in the airspace around Lake Lure &mdash; one of the worst-hit areas. There were none.
On Saturday, he and his son/co-pilot rescued four people from Lake Lure. They reached a stranded couple on Sunday as well. Because the chopper landed on an unstable driveway, they wanted to keep the weight down &mdash; so Seidhom took the woman first, promising to come back for the man later. Upon landing, Seidhom was greeted by grateful fire and search personnel. "One guy gave me the radio frequencies so we could communicate," Seidhom tells Firehouse.
Then the fire chief &mdash; or maybe assistant chief, Seidhom isn&rsquo;t sure &mdash; shows up.
"He told me if I didn't leave the area immediately, I'd be arrested. I told him my background, but he insisted I leave, saying I was interfering with his operation."
Lo and behold, a temporary flight restriction went up over Lake Lure about a half-hour after the confrontation.
Seidhom and his son had to head home to South Carolina. The man was left stranded, separated from his wife.
The flight restriction was lifted on Monday and Seidhom went back to work &mdash; this time as part of the Carolina Emergency Response Team. No comment from anyone in officialdom in Lake Lure.
But Seidhom&rsquo;s still miffed: &ldquo;I can only imagine what the people were thinking,&rdquo; he tells the New York Post. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve been stranded for 24, 36 hours. No way to speak with anyone. You don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s going on and you see a lifeline fly over and they keep going. I can only imagine what they were thinking.&rdquo;
Sheesh&hellip; The level of dysfunction here &mdash; and with a few other things in North Carolina &mdash; has a certain Maui/East Palestine vibe to it.
Then again, maybe it&rsquo;s just a Katrina redux?
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: From JFK to Jeffrey Epstein
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Great piece of work&hellip; keep it up,&rdquo; says the first of many responses to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/no-transparency-no-accountability">Tuesday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;Very good research!&rdquo; says another. &ldquo;Sickeningly insightful. Thanks for sharing it.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Very thought provoking 5 Bullets,&rdquo; says a third.
&ldquo;It is interesting that some historians point out the negative writings about a country's government and culture precede the destruction and disappearance of the country/empire.
&ldquo;The negative writings of Roman authors and historians preceded the fall of Rome. They could see its future demise in plain sight.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I really enjoyed Tuesday&rsquo;s rant about JFK and Epstein and COVID Fauci,&rdquo; says a fourth.
&ldquo;Thank you for stirring the conspiracy pot and making me more paranoid than I was. And giving credence to those I blew off as CTs. And I do want to hear the unabridged Warren Commission details.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> One more: &ldquo;In fairness, in this political season, could you opine on Kamala's answers concerning the full release of the JFK and Epstein files, as well as Trump's?&rdquo;
Dave responds: Given the increasing uselessness of Google and Google News in recent years, I posted a query to the Perplexity AI engine. It came up empty.
&ldquo;Based on the search results provided,&rdquo; it said, &ldquo;there is no indication that Kamala Harris has made any statements on the campaign trail about opening up the remaining redacted JFK assassination records.&rdquo; Ditto for any Epstein records.
As for &ldquo;conspiracy theories&rdquo;... I took pains on Tuesday to avoid any contested facts. My critique comes back to the old line about how &ldquo;it&rsquo;s not the conspiracy, it&rsquo;s the cover-up.&rdquo; Or in the case of COVID measures, the gaslighting.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Meanwhile, I enjoy &ldquo;fall of Rome&rdquo; analogies as much as anyone. The problem is where do you place America today relative to the timeline of Rome? 
Is it the end of the republic in the first century BCE &mdash; the populares fed up with the corrupt and degenerate optimates that presumed to rule over them? (And who, then, would be the Caesar figure that emerges now?)
Is it an already-declining empire&rsquo;s power struggle reminiscent of the Year of the Five Emperors (193)?
Are we about to be cursed with desperate control freaks and power-trippers like Diocletian and Constantine (turn of the fourth century)?
Or is it really the end of the Western empire?
Even if it were the last of those possibilities, how would we know?
Because as someone once quipped &mdash; it might have been newsletter legend Doug Casey &mdash; &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not as if everyone just woke up one day in A.D. 476 and said, &lsquo;Holy s***, we&rsquo;re in the Dark Ages now!&rsquo;&rdquo;

awn-hero-img-04-19-24 NEW YORK, USA, 2. OCTOBER 2022: Elon Musk businessman silhouette on Tesla presentation, Logo of company on red background

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TSLA reported its quarterly vehicles-delivered numbers. They were in line with the expectations of Wall Street analysts. So what’s the problem?

Tesla’s Endgame

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />America&rsquo;s Next Move
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Your editor today attended Paradigm&rsquo;s &ldquo;America's Next Move&rdquo; conference held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Baltimore on Tuesday. 
Despite the gloomy weather, Paradigm luminaries gathered on one stage to tease out the latest trends in technology, biotech, crypto and more.
With around 400 attendees soaking up the insights, the atmosphere buzzed with excitement over topics ranging from AI-driven drug discovery to innovative income strategies.
In case you&rsquo;re wondering, we've decided against releasing full recordings of the event. The conference's success with our 400 attendees has led us to maintain an air of exclusivity.
But for those who couldn't attend, don't be discouraged. We're exploring the possibility of releasing select talks in bite-sized video segments throughout the remainder of the year.
And we still have numerous highlights from the conference to discuss today&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Paradigm&rsquo;s iconoclast investor James Altucher kicked off the event with compelling stories from his eight years of professional day trading &mdash; as well as his time living in one of the few residential buildings on Wall Street during the 2009 financial crisis.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2lnQ6uJZEQQM20CXGbRfZe/da074018745c29d659c12c9d4298fd0a/image001.jpg" alt="James at the Conference" />
He described observing the gloomy faces of traders heading into the New York Stock Exchange each morning. In an effort to raise their spirits (heh, and their risk tolerance), he even handed out M&amp;Ms and Hershey&rsquo;s bars to these weary traders.
Meanwhile, because of his proximity to CNBC&rsquo;s studio near the NYSE, James was a regular guest. But his brand of optimism eventually made him persona non grata. James&rsquo; mother even called to advise him not to smile too much on TV!
Of course, Altucher&rsquo;s journey from hedge fund manager&hellip; to day trader&hellip; to crypto evangelist has been anything but conventional. More on that later&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />AI's Game-Changing Role
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Next up, our chief technology analyst Ray Blanco painted a vivid picture of how AI is revolutionizing drug discovery and development. 
Ray highlighted the risky business of getting a new drug to market &mdash; costing around $2.3 billion per drug and often taking over a decade. But using AI could help boost success rates while cutting costs by an impressive 90%.
He even joked we might be looking at &ldquo;Star Trek-level health care&rdquo; in the near future where advancements in AI, personalized medicine, gene editing and immunotherapy could help extend human life spans to an average 120 years.
With AI's ability to streamline processes and identify promising drug candidates, Ray&rsquo;s optimism &mdash; like Altucher&rsquo;s &mdash; was infectious.
And it&rsquo;s in this context that Ray mentioned a biotech company that specializes in developing computational software for drug discovery. (Out of respect for attendees who paid for the experience yesterday, we&rsquo;re withholding most names of stocks.)
After Ray&rsquo;s turn at the podium&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Paradigm&rsquo;s retirement-and-income specialist Zach Scheidt took center stage, focusing on income-generating strategies amid changing market conditions. 
He pointed out that as interest rates decline, dividend stocks are likely to become more appealing to investors seeking safer havens for their money.
&ldquo;Expect money to move out of high-yield accounts and into high-quality, dividend-paying stocks,&rdquo; he advised.
And Zach highlighted two &ldquo;boring&rdquo; companies that stand to benefit from growing dividends as well as AI&rsquo;s demand for electricity and data centers.
Both companies are well-positioned in this evolving landscape, providing essential infrastructure for AI development and data management.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Crypto, AI and Main Street
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />James Altucher and crypto expert Chris Campbell focused on cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence &mdash; particularly in light of the upcoming 2024 election.
James expressed confidence in the long-term prospects of cryptocurrencies, regardless of the election&rsquo;s outcome, drawing parallels between early skepticism toward the internet and current attitudes about crypto, suggesting that widespread adoption is inevitable.
&ldquo;In the long run, it doesn&rsquo;t matter who wins the presidency &mdash; crypto will go up,&rdquo; James says.
The discussion also touched on some practical applications of blockchain technology &mdash; for instance, projects like OriginTrail (TRAC) for supply-chain management and AMP for secure payments.
He also discussed the concept of tokenization, explaining how it could revolutionize asset ownership and investment opportunities.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, Chris&rsquo; presentation highlighted the intersection of crypto, AI and Main Street.
And leave it to Chris to introduce the word &ldquo;enantiodromia&rdquo; which suggests that as the world becomes more global, there's a countertrend toward localization. Chris would argue that both crypto and AI, often seen as global technologies, are fundamentally local in nature.
The presentation further emphasized the value of local public data, which Campbell sees as underutilized.
He underscored opportunities in local contexts such as community-focused news and weather data collection.
Chris also discussed the potential of open-source hardware and AI-driven 3D printing to solve local problems. In the realm of food production, for example, he noted how AI and robotics could significantly increase yield while reducing water usage.
Overall, Chris expressed optimism about the future in light of the potential for local, AI-driven solutions to global problems. And he concluded with a mention of a cryptocurrency that allows users to control their own data.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Next &ldquo;Mag 7&rdquo; Stocks?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />A panel discussion had Paradigm experts and a few behind-the-scenes contributors weighing in: predictions for the next wave of dominant technology stocks &mdash; akin to today&rsquo;s &ldquo;Magnificent 7.&rdquo; 
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6MxRmzdcBD9U7IykhWy9nc/7728b0bedaffd73da613f27952e8562b/image002.jpg" alt="Panel Discussion" />
Picks included&hellip;
Again, we&rsquo;re withholding specific names today, but a colleague tells me this panel discussion might be among the first video segments released. Stay tuned!
That said, the conversation sparked lively debate &mdash; and some good-natured ribbing &mdash; about which companies truly deserve a spot on this coveted list.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Playing 10-Dimensional Chess
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />At &ldquo;America's Next Move,&rdquo; attendees were treated to a unique chess exhibition featuring James Altucher. 
Paradigm event organizers set up 10 chess tables in a line, and James took on all challengers simultaneously.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/16tCEGNqTOvAjNq4RKclVz/a10cb1214d9deca64b97515f658f20fd/James_chess.png" alt="James playing chess" />
Courtesy: Rick Barnard-Singer
As James moved from table to table, the room was filled with palpable tension. While there was no play-by-play commentary, a focused silence permeated the air, broken only by the soft sounds of chess pieces being moved.
The matches progressed at varying paces; when a game concluded, it was signaled by a brief round of applause from onlookers.
The entire exhibition lasted just over two hours. And in an impressive display of skill and mental agility, James emerged victorious in nine of the 10 matches.
The tenth game? While not technically a loss, James conceded as he anticipated inevitable defeat.
Each plucky contestant got to keep the chess set. Which James happily signed&hellip;
Take care, reader! We&rsquo;ll be back with another round of 5 Bullets tomorrow.
P.S. The markets today, you ask?
Let&rsquo;s put it this way: The contrast yesterday was striking &mdash; reminiscent of Dave&rsquo;s reflections <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-year-of-ai" target="_blank" rel="noopener">at the start of the year</a> about the vibe in 1939-40. War was raging in Europe and the Depression wasn&rsquo;t over at home. But tens of millions flocked to the New York World&rsquo;s Fair to see the latest and greatest in technology, eager to explore the possibilities for human progress and betterment.
Yesterday inside a hotel ballroom we had a group of 400 subscribers jazzed about the possibilities in AI, crypto and small companies that could set the world on its ear.
Outside the ballroom, the dockworkers went on strike, an event that threatens to snarl supply chains worse than during the pandemic. And the Middle East conflict escalated to startling new heights that could threaten global oil flows.
The market impact has been palpable &mdash; a barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude soaring from under $67 yesterday to over $72 today.
By the same token, the stock market took a hit, the S&amp;P 500 tumbling nearly 1% yesterday and treading water today at 5,712.
Gold is holding the line on $2,650 and silver is back within a dime of $32. Bitcoin is backsliding, under $62,000.
Yes, the world is a rough place right now. But it was a rough place 85 years ago in 1939 &mdash; and yet, people oohed and aahed at the first public demo of television. The technology changed the world and minted vast new fortunes.

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Your editor today attended Paradigm’s “America's Next Move” conference held in Baltimore on Tuesday. We have numerous highlights to discuss today…