<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 Mother of All Tariffs
<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 tariff headline today is the president slapping a 35% levy on Canada effective Aug. 1. But that&rsquo;s peanuts compared with what&rsquo;s coming as early as Monday.
For whatever reason the mainstream didn&rsquo;t notice&hellip; but on Tuesday of this week, Donald Trump suggested he&rsquo;d throw his support behind a bill in Congress that would impose a 500% tariff on imports from any country that buys Russian energy.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/will-america-tariff-itself#bill">We told you about this bill in early June</a>. Sponsored by the warmongering Senate duo of Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), the measure has 83 co-sponsors &mdash; way more than a veto-proof majority. Presumably support in the House would be nearly as lopsided.
The president&rsquo;s remarks about this mother of all tariffs came at the same time he committed to sending more weapons to Ukraine &mdash; and said he was &ldquo;disappointed&rdquo; in Russia&rsquo;s Vladimir Putin for continuing to wage war. Evidently Trump thinks this bill might give him negotiating leverage.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m looking. It&rsquo;s totally at my option. They pass it totally at my option, and to terminate totally at my option. And I&rsquo;m looking at it very strongly.&rdquo;
(If this is so, why do we even bother having a legislative branch anymore? But I digress&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" />Among the Senate dissidents is Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) &mdash; who warns the bill&rsquo;s passage &ldquo;would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s not just that China buys energy from Russia and thus all American imports from China would be subject to a 500% duty.
As Paul points out, &ldquo;Dozens of countries continue to trade with Russia directly and indirectly including key strategic allies&hellip;&rdquo;
Europe still can&rsquo;t wean itself off Russian energy; imports of Russian liquefied natural gas into the European Union grew 19% between 2023&ndash;2024. All American imports from the EU would be subject to 500% tariffs.
Japan also relies on Russian LNG. All American imports from Japan would be subject to 500% tariffs.
Trump&rsquo;s remarks this week got more attention in India&rsquo;s press than in the United States. &ldquo;India will be hit hard as it has benefited greatly from buying cheaper Russian oil since the Russia-Ukraine war broke out,&rdquo; explains The Economic Times.
As we&rsquo;ve chronicled now and then, India&rsquo;s oil imports from Russia have skyrocketed since 2022. India&rsquo;s been happy to buy the Russian crude that Americans and Europeans have sanctioned.
Before 2022, less than 1% of India&rsquo;s oil imports came from Russia. This summer it&rsquo;s at least 40%. Russia is far and away India&rsquo;s biggest crude supplier.
India is America&rsquo;s No. 7 trading partner &mdash; sending us everything from electrical equipment to pharmaceuticals to textiles. And all of it would be subject to a 500% tariff under this bill.
As Sen. Paul warns, &ldquo;these tariffs would make U.S. trade with most of the world untenable, raise prices for American consumers and risk further weakening the dollar.&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 Trump&rsquo;s remarks Tuesday, he gave a birthday shout-out on Wednesday to the bill&rsquo;s lead sponsor, Sen. Graham&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2KpGLjTa0AEIZtppRJiagt/8e0f3074eec78fd18c8c9fa7a6314771/TrumpTweet.png" alt="trump tweet" width="540px" />
The following day, yesterday, he said this to Kristen Welker of NBC News: &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;ll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday.&rdquo; He offered no detail.
That&rsquo;s where it stands with the mother of all tariffs going into this weekend. Check back with us next week&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" />BTC ATH
<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 market story today is Bitcoin &mdash; blasting to all-time highs over $118,000 this morning, now hovering around $117k.
Although as some wags are quick to point out, it&rsquo;s not so much that Bitcoin is strong as it&rsquo;s a vote of no-confidence in the U.S. dollar.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/20QxcqjAEQUYMWs9CWZCFf/6d767a67f270828ab062037ed41187d0/Bitcoin.png" alt="bitcoin" width="540px" />
Same goes for precious metals: Gold is up $34 on the day to $3,356 &mdash; and silver is on track to end the day (and the week) over $38 for the first time since 2011.
&ldquo;Bitcoin has nothing but blue skies above,&rdquo; Greg Guenthner tells his Trading Desk subscribers. &ldquo;I know it sounds crazy, but I think the high $200ks is a decent year-end target.&rdquo; Meanwhile at the Rude Awakening, Sean Ring says it&rsquo;s not too soon to start thinking about silver recovering its $50 record high &mdash; which would &ldquo;almost certainly be the beginning of a new surge, not the end of the bull market.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s how it goes when the purchasing power of your dollars is being relentlessly trashed.
Even crude is seeing a big bounce today &mdash; up nearly two bucks to $68.53, another high-water mark since the big slide on June 23.
<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 is slightly in the red as the weekend approaches &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 pulling back from yesterday&rsquo;s record close of 6,280.
The aforementioned Greg Guenthner points out the best performers of late have been the most crazy-speculative names &mdash; like the hydrogen fuel-cell maker Plug Power Inc. &ldquo;If PLUG is on the move, you know you&rsquo;re in a frothy, speculative market.
&ldquo;Unfortunately, it also usually means we&rsquo;re closer to the end of a big run than the beginning of one. This &lsquo;dash for trash&rsquo; is likely the last leg of this thrust before the market will need to cool off and reset. No guarantees, of course. But that&rsquo;s usually how these situations play out.&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" /> Don&rsquo;t get the wrong idea: That doesn&rsquo;t necessarily mean a big plunge is around the corner. 
As Paradigm&rsquo;s Zach Scheidt points out this week for readers of Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel, corrections come in two flavors &mdash; corrections in price and corrections in time.
Corrections in time mean that &ldquo;stocks simply trade sideways for a period of time [as] investors gradually become accustomed to the higher prices and set a new baseline.&rdquo;
We had such an episode of sideways chop late last year and early this &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 oscillating between 5,800 and 6,100 for the better part of four months. It&rsquo;s the old truism about nothing goes up in a straight line&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" />Here We Go Again
<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 one of your periodic reminders that global shipping through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal is still balled up.
In early 2024, the Houthi faction that rules most of Yemen started harassing Israel- and U.S.-linked ships transiting the slender Bab-al-Mandeb waterway at the south end of the Red Sea &mdash; an act of solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
As a result, much of Western shipping that once transited the Suez Canal is taking the long way around Africa &mdash; as it did before the canal was completed in 1869.
Earlier this year after an Israel-Hamas cease-fire fell apart, U.S. forces started a major bombing campaign in Yemen. The Houthis responded to considerable effect. They downed several MQ-9 Reaper drones costing over $30 million each. Meanwhile, evasive maneuvers by U.S. aircraft carriers resulted in two fighter jets sliding off the deck and into the drink.
Then the Trump administration negotiated a separate peace with the Houthis: The Israelis were not a party to it.
Fast-forward to this week and for the first time this year, the Houthis started attacking commercial ships bound for Israeli ports&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1AWB8n8yciRWEzwC4b568E/930f954ca0cc6e0e556b5d2ee25a8663/AIJazeera.png" alt="ai jazeera" width="540px" />
And so the State Department is suggesting that Washington might start bombing the Houthis again &ldquo;to protect freedom of navigation,&rdquo; as spokeswoman Tammy Bruce put it. Israeli officials are egging on the Trump administration, saying it &ldquo;can no longer remain solely an Israeli problem.&rdquo;
As I said when Joe Biden was still president, it would be easy to end all of this with one phone call <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/rising-inflation-bombs-away">like Ronald Reagan made in 1982</a>. But Biden didn&rsquo;t have it in him and neither does Trump&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" /><s>Lemonade</s> Bait Stand Tyranny
<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 wouldn&rsquo;t be summer if we didn&rsquo;t have a 5 Bullets story about lemonade-stand law enforcement.
It&rsquo;s been a staple of ours for years &mdash; youngsters getting their first taste of entrepreneurship, only to be stymied by snitches and busybodies and Karens who notify the zoning board or the health department or whatever. (It even happened to Jerry Seinfeld&rsquo;s son 10 years ago in the Hamptons!)
Now an alert reader has tipped us off to a variation on the theme&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7z5wsPuCTxZon0HrRSHi2M/bfc5d2ebfed6cc26aa6691b4cd856565/AgDay.png" alt="agday" width="540px" />
&ldquo;A teenage boy&rsquo;s fishing bait stand, stocked with worms, sodas and candy, is a threat to government order,&rdquo; says a report by the farm-oriented TV newscast AgDay.
(Love how they can barely conceal their contempt for the bureaucrats!)
&ldquo;Max McKinney&rsquo;s home-built, 6&rsquo;x15&rsquo; shed perched at the end of his farm driveway in Spooner, Wis., has been deemed a zoning violation and shut down by county officials.&rdquo;
McKinney is in an ideal location for such a venture &mdash; a touristy spot in the northwest of the Badger State.
Alas, Washburn County zoning authorities have issued a cease-and-desist order &mdash; complete with a threat of daily fines if he fails to comply.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s hard to believe,&rdquo; says the 15-year-old McKinney &mdash; who hoped to squirrel away the proceeds and put them toward medical school. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m angry and sad at the same time. I thought I was working hard and doing the right thing. Instead, they say I broke their regulations.&rdquo;
The regulations in question govern the presence of a &ldquo;general merchandise store&rdquo; in an area zoned &ldquo;Residential Recreation.&rdquo;
McKinney&rsquo;s grandfather Tom Foss owns the property &mdash; and he&rsquo;s disgusted.. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no way this type of bureaucratic crackdown on a kid selling bait would have happened when I was a teen in the 1970s,&rdquo; he tells AgDay.
&ldquo;My grandson, Max, is the kind of kid this country needs more of.&rdquo;
Amen. Whatever Max decides to do next, we wish him well&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: Socialism, Bias, Cynicism
<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;Is it just me, or should all citizens be concerned when the Pentagon starts investing in privately held or publicly traded companies?&rdquo; a reader writes after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trump-buys-his-first-mining-stock">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a> spotlighting the news about MP Materials.
&ldquo;This is how China, Russia and Venezuela operate. We've stooped that low? Please, 5 Bullets team, explain to me how this is not far overstepping the bounds of &lsquo;free marketing capitalism&rsquo; and entering us into very disconcerting times.&rdquo;
Dave responds: I share your concern. I raised that concern when I first broached the Trump administration&rsquo;s plans <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trump-wants-to-buy-mining-stocks">in late April</a>. Kinda blurs the line between crony capitalism and fascism, no? (Or is it the strict definition of socialism &mdash; state ownership of the means of production? Strange times these are&hellip;)
But there&rsquo;s literally nothing you can do about it. (Write your congressman? Please.)
As I also wrote at the time, you can&rsquo;t let your politics affect your investing decisions. Like it or not, politicians and bureaucrats make decisions every day that alter the flows of billions of dollars. Successful investing means positioning yourself so you can capture some of those flows, whatever you might think about government&rsquo;s role in the economy&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;Your analysis always appears biased against what the administration is doing,&rdquo; a reader writes.
That&rsquo;s literally all the email said.
Another reader wrote a few days earlier that with <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trumps-new-tariff-deadline#2">my take on the Big Beautiful Bill</a>, I was effectively &ldquo;spewing propaganda like CNN and MSDNC!&rdquo;
Perhaps this individual wasn&rsquo;t around last year when people thought I was in the tank for Trump.
Oh, well. It&rsquo;s an occupational hazard. Generally speaking, whoever&rsquo;s in charge, I&rsquo;m agin&rsquo; &lsquo;em.
Although I&rsquo;ve gotten saltier about it since the 2008 and 2012 campaign cycles&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7rCZ5z875X9GV5LramfVV6/2249330b706eaf78e26745acc2202470/AllOver.png" alt="all over" width="540px" />
Which brings us to one more email from a longtimer about <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/9-11-the-financial-crisis-and-covid">&ldquo;the cynicism issue&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" /> &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve read with great interest Dave&rsquo;s self-bio and him addressing his &ldquo;cynical&rdquo; side 😊
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve always enjoyed Dave&rsquo;s brief glimpses into his personal life. As I read about your background in your career, I conjured up this image of Dave.
&ldquo;Knowing he is an ELP (Emerson, Lake &amp; Palmer) fan, your (his) emoji should be the Tarkus album cover of a tank-like armadillo.
&ldquo;But come on, you REALLY need a fantasy football team. Now, there&rsquo;s where that cynicism would really come in handy! LOL&rdquo;
Dave: Hmmm&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1jHiw7MK9ojlPXc7abvSAo/c3e1d9dc8549f2cd1bfe754d823d2aec/Tarkus.png" alt="tarkus" width="250px" />
Sorry, I&rsquo;m much too casual of a football fan to ever take up fantasy leagues. I&rsquo;d have to immerse myself in stats, highlights, etc. if I wanted to do it right. Go big or go home!
Have a good weekend,
<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

Tariff-cartoon

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Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets is a daily e-letter covering the economy and the markets, reaching 120,000 paying subscribers of the renowned financial publishing firm Paradigm Press.

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

The big tariff headline today is the president slapping a 35% levy on Canada effective Aug. 1. 

Mother of All Tariffs

trump-phone-hero

Trump Buys His First Mining Stock

<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 Clock&rsquo;s Ticking on America&rsquo;s Energy Future
<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 the autumn of 2021, the world watched as entire cities across China fell dark, under the shroud of sudden, government-mandated power rationing. 
China experienced abrupt power outages that brought cities to a standstill &mdash; traffic lights failed, causing gridlock, and elevators were shut down to save electricity. Some residents, desperate for warmth, burned coal or gas indoors, resulting in dangerous incidents of carbon monoxide poisoning.
At the same time, many factories faced intermittent power cuts. Energy-intensive industries, especially textiles, faced strict rationing, forcing managers and customers to adapt to unpredictable shutdowns.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/dOEacUKK4djIR7UfQybhs/6bdd0677be286b4df382b1b9a4bfb9a2/Dan.png" alt="Dan Tweet" width="540px" />
It was a stark reminder that even one of the most advanced economies in the world was not immune to energy shortages. But few Americans imagine such scenes could unfold here.
<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" /> Fast-forward to 2025, and the U.S. is now staring down its own energy crisis &mdash; one that experts warn could bring unprecedented blackouts and economic disruption.
America&rsquo;s electric grid, once the envy of the world, is now overtaxed and underprepared for the demands of a digital, electrified economy.
The U.S. Department of Energy&rsquo;s (DOE) latest Resource Adequacy Report paints a sobering picture: &ldquo;Modeling shows annual outage hours could increase from single digits today to more than 800 hours per year,&rdquo; the DOE warns. &ldquo;Such a surge would leave millions of households and businesses vulnerable.&rdquo;
What&rsquo;s driving this crisis? The answer is a collision course of factors:
<ul>
<li>Exploding demand: Electricity consumption is soaring, fueled by the rapid growth of data centers, artificial intelligence and electric vehicles and a shift away from fossil fuels. The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects power demand will hit record highs, with a 38% jump in peak demand by 2030</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Aging infrastructure: Much of America&rsquo;s electrical grid dates back to the 1950s and &rsquo;60s; these aging wires and substations weren&rsquo;t built for today&rsquo;s soaring demand. Breakdowns and maintenance issues are becoming more common, while overloaded transmission lines create bottlenecks across regions. A shortage of skilled workers, many nearing retirement, further slows upgrades and repairs, leaving the system increasingly fragile</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Plant retirements: Older coal, gas and nuclear plants, critical for grid stability, are being retired faster than new, reliable replacements can be built. The DOE estimates 104 gigawatts of baseload generation could be lost by 2030, while 95% of new capacity in progress is renewable, intermittent</li>
</ul>
Meanwhile, shifting government priorities &mdash; supporting fossil fuels versus promoting renewables &mdash; make it difficult for utilities to plan long-term projects with any confidence.
Such uncertainty discourages investment and innovation, slowing the modernization of the grid at a time when rapid upgrades are urgently needed.
<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 DOE warns that &ldquo;the status quo is unsustainable for the U.S. electric grid.&rdquo; 
The solution isn&rsquo;t as simple as choosing between fossil fuels and renewables. The DOE stresses the need for a &ldquo;balanced transition&rdquo; &mdash; extending the life of existing plants, accelerating infrastructure projects and significantly expanding nuclear energy.
To that last point, recent federal action directs the DOE to facilitate power upgrades at existing reactors, fast-track construction of new nuclear plants and bolster domestic uranium supplies, aiming to quadruple U.S. nuclear capacity by 2050.
But the DOE cautions: &ldquo;If the U.S. doesn&rsquo;t act quickly to balance energy supply and demand, power blackouts could increase 100-fold by 2030.&rdquo;
Conclusion? The clock is ticking. The warning signs &mdash; rolling blackouts abroad (and &ldquo;load shedding&rdquo; domestically), a maxed-out grid and surging demand &mdash; are impossible to ignore.
The consequences of an overtaxed grid go far beyond the inconvenience of flickering lights. Blackouts threaten everything from hospital operations to food supply chains and national security.
Without urgent, coordinated action, the U.S. could soon join the ranks of nations grappling with routine energy shortages. The time to shore up America&rsquo;s grid is now.
<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" />Copper Tariffs = Self-Sabotage
<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" /> Donald Trump&rsquo;s 50% copper tariff is a gut punch to America&rsquo;s infrastructure ambitions. 
Hiking tariffs on this critical metal, as the president did yesterday, is counterintuitive when the nation is desperate to modernize its aging grid.
The administration claims tariffs will boost domestic production, but the reality is stark: America lacks the smelters, refineries and regulatory speed to ramp up supply overnight.
&nbsp;&ldquo;If you make copper too expensive to import, and it&rsquo;s already too bureaucratic to produce locally, you&rsquo;re setting yourself up for a supply shock,&rdquo; warns Paradigm editor Sean Ring at The Rude Awakening. 
Not to mention the U.S. imports almost half its refined copper because as hedge fund manager Spencer Hakimian tweets: &ldquo;You can tariff copper 10,000% and it still won&rsquo;t change the fact that most of the copper on Earth is in Chile and Peru&hellip; The copper mines in the world are where they are. There&rsquo;s literally nothing you can do about it.&rdquo;
Sean adds, &ldquo;When you tariff the one metal required in every wire, motor, pipe and power line in your society, don&rsquo;t be surprised when costs explode and your economy shorts out.
&ldquo;Nothing says &lsquo;Let&rsquo;s build new infrastructure&rsquo; like tripling the cost of the stuff that wires, powers and plumbs the entire economy.&rdquo;
This isn&rsquo;t just a blow to manufacturing &mdash; literally every industry will feel the pain. Tariffing copper is an act of self-sabotage, risking higher inflation and stalling the very progress America needs.
<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 market&rsquo;s verdict was swift: U.S. copper futures surged 13% to record highs yesterday. Today, the price of copper&rsquo;s pulled back about 3.5%.
As for other commodities in the spotlight, WTI crude oil is up 0.35%, trading at $68.60 a barrel. Gold is up 0.15% to $3,322 per ounce, but silver is down about 0.10% to $36.70.
U.S. stocks have ticked higher midday: the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 0.15% to 44,300, the S&amp;P 500 has gained 0.25% to 5,240 and the Nasdaq Composite is up 0.60% at 20,540.
Notably, Nvidia (NVDA) is dominating headlines, surging over 2% today to $163.33 per share and pushing its market cap to a record $4 trillion &mdash; making it the most valuable company in history. The AI chip giant&rsquo;s meteoric rise has left other tech titans in the dust, cementing its status as the new heavyweight champ of Wall Street.
<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" />Inside the Rick Rule Symposium 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" />&ldquo;This week, I&rsquo;m in Boca Raton, Florida, attending Rick Rule&rsquo;s annual investment conference alongside Jim Rickards and Byron King,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s editor Adam Sharp at The Daily Reckoning. 
&ldquo;Rick is a legend in the natural resource investing space,&rdquo; Adam continues. &ldquo;This conference is a bit like Mecca for gold, silver and hard asset investors.&rdquo;
Rick kicked things off with a keynote that was &ldquo;one for the record books.&rdquo; He laid out the stark reality: &ldquo;America&rsquo;s financial math isn&rsquo;t adding up.&rdquo;
With Americans holding about $141 trillion in net worth, we&rsquo;re also facing $36.6 trillion in outstanding debt &mdash; 123% of GDP &mdash; and nearly $100 trillion in unfunded liabilities. These are costs like Medicare, Medicaid, federal pensions, Social Security and the like.
&ldquo;These unfunded liabilities are money we have promised, but not paid for. They will come due over the coming years and decades,&rdquo; says Adam.
&ldquo;So we are already almost at a 1:1 ratio in terms of net worth and liabilities. $141 trillion in net worth and $136.6 billion in liabilities. In other words, we can&rsquo;t tax our way out of this one.&rdquo;
Debt is rising by at least $2 trillion a year, and unfunded liabilities are ballooning just as fast. &ldquo;Entitlement spending has grown completely out of control.
<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;We&rsquo;re approaching the tipping point. And Rick Rule says we&rsquo;re destined to print money and devalue the dollar to make up the difference,&rdquo; Adam notes.
Rick draws parallels to the 1970s, when the dollar&rsquo;s purchasing power fell by around 75% and inflation soared about 15%.
&ldquo;In real terms (after inflation) the S&amp;P 500 index lost money over the decade. The broad stock market offered no shelter,&rdquo; adds Adam.
&ldquo;However, some investors thrived during the &lsquo;70s. They did so by buying gold, silver, miners, oil and other natural resources. This is how Jim Rogers and George Soros made their fortunes.
&ldquo;Rick strongly believes that this is the best path to preserving and even growing wealth during this tumultuous period.
&ldquo;Gold and silver miners. Base metals like iron and copper, too. Oil and gas companies. These are sectors that stand to benefit from sustained inflation,&rdquo; Adam emphasizes. &ldquo;Silver miners, in particular, are cheap. Both Rick and I love &lsquo;poor man&rsquo;s gold,&rsquo; and the companies that produce it.
<a href="https://dailyreckoning.com/is-it-finally-time-to-buy-platinum">&ldquo;Platinum</a> has been on fire over the past few months. Since [May], the price has risen from $982 to $1,386 per ounce. This unique precious metal has often traded at par or even a premium to gold, so it could still have a lot of catching up to do.&rdquo;
The message from Boca Raton is loud and clear: &ldquo;Rick Rule strongly believes that investing in hard assets will be key to thriving over the next decade,&rdquo; says Adam. &ldquo;So do we.&rdquo;
<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" />For the Record
<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;Got gold?&rdquo; asks editor Sean Ring at our internal Slack channel, captioning this tweet&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/10c63KvYBzcF8AlDV31Mpd/c7f5e2545e4ded7302759efaaa2eee68/E.J.png" alt="EJ Tweet" width="540px" />
This chart tracks the total U.S. public debt since the start of the Biden administration in January 2021. The periods where the line flattens out represent times when the debt ceiling was in effect, preventing the government from borrowing more money.
Each time the debt ceiling is suspended or raised, the line jumps upward as the Treasury catches up on borrowing. Most recently, with the debt ceiling no longer in force, there&rsquo;s a sudden $366 billion spike in the national debt. How quickly government borrowing rises once those limits are lifted!
<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" />Brie Prepared: More Than Meets the 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" />Fancy a slice of French countryside for the price of a croissant? The village of Ambert, famous for its fourme d'Ambert cheese, is offering two homes for just one euro each. But before you start packing your beret and dreaming of baguettes, there&rsquo;s a twist.
These aren&rsquo;t move-in ready chateaux; think more DIY adventure than turnkey retreat. The catch? Buyers must commit to renovating these crumbling beauties within a year &mdash; no letting your fixer-upper gather more dust &mdash; and then living in the residence full-time for three years minimum.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3NdsavdPw8pD8rb5siUvU8/c8121fe09466b7b1266e1023b6c41b3b/France.png" alt="France" width="540px" />

Courtesy: Daniel C., Tripadvisor Ambert, France
Why the bargain? The small village in southeast France, with about 6,500 residents, has launched this initiative as part of a five-year plan to reverse population decline and inject new life into its sleepy streets.
(With property vacancy rates in some parts of Ambert reaching up to 60%, local authorities should probably put more than just two homes on the market!)
It&rsquo;s a clever strategy: lure dreamers &mdash; especially young dreamers &mdash; with a price tag that&rsquo;s practically pocket change, then challenge them to roll up their sleeves and get to work. The local council hopes this will attract a new wave of residents, ideally those with a fondness for rustic charm and a knack for plastering walls (a dying art, I&rsquo;m told).
So if your Pinterest board is overflowing with &ldquo;cottage core&rdquo; inspiration and you don&rsquo;t mind a few cobwebs, Ambert might be your next great adventure.
Just remember, in Europe, even a one-euro house comes with its own archaic blueprint of <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-14421909/Reality-buying-1-home-Italy-Netflix-rom-com-La-Dolce-Villa-paints-glossy-picture-pitfalls-buyers-face-include-asbestos-eye-watering-bureaucracy-earthquake-fears.html">bureaucracy.</a>
Enjoy your day! We&rsquo;ll catch up with you tomorrow&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

LightsOut

Even the most advanced economy in the world is not immune to energy shortages. 

Lights Out

<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" />Tight Supplies, Surging Prices
<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 begin the week with a sense of foreboding&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1YAfJfmOXqnyX7U2qluX2t/c5404d51c3c16a0505452784ed9d39da/Will.png" alt="will tweet" width="540px" />
This much we know: Even before his <a href="https://x.com/gc22gc/status/1944147392145895628">&ldquo;Epstein crashout&rdquo;</a> on Saturday, the president was <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/mother-of-all-tariffs">promising</a> he&rsquo;d have &ldquo;a major statement to make on Russia&rdquo; today.
In the meantime, while we await whatever that might be, we turn our attention back to an ongoing theme in these virtual pages for the last 18 months. At long last the mainstream is catching on&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;America's largest power grid is under strain as data centers and AI chatbots consume power faster than new plants can be built,&rdquo; says the Reuters newswire.
Summertime electric bills are set to surge 20% or more in at least part of the area served by PJM.
PJM is the biggest &ldquo;interconnection&rdquo; or regional grid operator in the country &mdash; serving 67 million customers from New Jersey west to Illinois. Here&rsquo;s a map from PJM showing all the power companies that rely on it&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/19CSBehmKX4b9EwhMjvivW/d1ef0f8377fe60951f02da29bdb3cb5c/map.png" alt="map" width="540px" />
More than any other interconnection, PJM is feeling the squeeze from the explosion in use of AI engines like ChatGPT. PJM&rsquo;s service area includes much of Virginia &mdash; including Loudoun County, home to what&rsquo;s now known as &ldquo;Data Center Alley.&rdquo;
Nearly a year ago we told you about PJM&rsquo;s annual power market auction &mdash; an event aimed at averting blackouts by setting a rate at which power suppliers agree to generate the juice on the hottest and coldest days, when the grid is most under stress.
The result of that auction was that as of six weeks ago &mdash; June 1, 2025 &mdash; prices for power plants leaped to $269.92 per megawatt day.
Compared with 2024 levels, that&rsquo;s an 800% increase.
As we said a year ago, an 800% increase in auction rates does not translate to 800% higher electric bills; state regulators impose caps on rate increases. But 20% will definitely take a bite out of many household budgets.
<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 you might expect, there&rsquo;s a lot of finger-pointing. 
Back to the Reuters article&hellip;
<blockquote>PJM has made the situation worse by delaying auctions and pausing the application process for new plants, according to more than a dozen power developers, regulators, energy attorneys and other experts interviewed by Reuters.</blockquote>
<blockquote>&ldquo;We need speed from PJM, we need transparency from PJM and we need to keep consumer costs down with PJM,&rdquo; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro told Reuters in an interview.</blockquote>
For its part, PJM says much of the problem lies outside its control: State regulators shut down power plants fueled by coal and natural gas, the better to fight &ldquo;climate change&rdquo; &mdash; at the very moment that power-hungry data centers have been growing like weeds.
&ldquo;Prices will remain high as long as demand growth is outstripping supply,&rdquo; says PJM spokesman Jeffrey Shields. More from the article&hellip;
<blockquote>PJM has lost more than 5.6 net gigawatts in the last decade as power plants shut faster than new ones enter service, according to a PJM presentation filed with regulators this year. PJM added about 5 gigawatts of power-generating capacity in 2024, fewer than smaller grids in California and Texas.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Meanwhile, data center demand is surging. By 2030, PJM expects 32 gigawatts of increased demand on its system, with all but two of those gigawatts coming from data centers.</blockquote>
<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" /> Key point: PJM&rsquo;s next auction is Wednesday. Auction rates could leap again &mdash; worsening the rate spiral for consumers next year.
And the risk of blackouts remains &mdash; a risk that&rsquo;s on the radar of the White House. In May the Trump administration ordered two fossil-fuel power plants in Pennsylvania to remain open past their scheduled retirement date.
We&rsquo;ll follow up as the week progresses. In the meantime, on to other matters&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" />Tariff Roundup: Russia, 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" />As the day wears on, it seems the big Russia announcement is a variant on the Senate bill we mentioned <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/mother-of-all-tariffs">in Friday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
The president says if there&rsquo;s no Russia-Ukraine cease-fire in 50 days, he&rsquo;ll apply &ldquo;secondary tariffs&rdquo; of 100% to Russia.
Presumably, that means the 100% tariff would be applied against countries that do business with Russia &mdash; which is a lot of countries.
China, yes &mdash; but as we mentioned on Friday both the European Union and Japan still buy liquefied natural gas from Russia.
For that matter, the United States still buys uranium from Russia &mdash; which once more raises the strange prospect of whether America <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/will-america-tariff-itself">will tariff itself</a>.
Anyway, it seems the takeaway here is that we&rsquo;re looking at 100% tariffs and not the 500% proposed in a bipartisan Senate bill. Last week, the president said he was giving the bill serious consideration.
Will the legislation be rewritten? Congress goes on its summer break in less than two weeks. And 50 days from now is the day after Labor Day.
With that, you know what we know.
By the way, on Saturday the president said the tariffs against the European Union and Mexico &mdash; who together supply a third of U.S. imports &mdash; will be 30%. Presumably that&rsquo;s effective Aug. 1. Then again, stay tuned.
<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 you&rsquo;re still accumulating your precious metals stash, you should know there isn&rsquo;t any clarity about tariffs there, either.
When the president made his initial tariff declarations, it seemed gold and silver imports would be exempt.
But according to Josh Phair, CEO of Scottsdale Mint, it&rsquo;s not that simple.
&ldquo;They said that bullion is exempted,&rdquo; Phair tells Kitco News. &ldquo;But if we start looking at a lot of the tariff codes, everyone's going to need to know exactly what is considered bullion, because in our industry we call coins bullion, like from Perth Mint, for example, but that actually is legal tender. It's a monetary bullion product.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s an issue if, for instance, you find the premiums on U.S. Gold Eagles to be too steep and you opt instead for a less-costly government-issued coin like Canadian Maple Leafs, Austrian Philharmonics or South African Krugerrands. They won&rsquo;t be less costly if they&rsquo;re subject to tariffs.
On the wholesale level, &ldquo;What nobody wants is to bring in a $10 million shipment of something and get slapped with $1 million-plus in taxes,&rdquo; says Phair. &ldquo;It feels like the whole world is waiting for clarity.&rdquo;
Trump is &ldquo;changing his view two, three times a day,&rdquo; adds Jeff Christian, managing partner at CPM Group. &ldquo;He's throwing things in, and he is taking things out. So you really can't say definitively what the tariffs will apply to, or if there even will be tariffs.&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" />New Crypto Highs, Overstretched 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" />As was the case Friday, the big market story is all-time highs in Bitcoin.
The flagship crypto surpassed $120,000 overnight, although it&rsquo;s pulled back ever so slightly this morning. Excitement is building amid hype over what the corporate media are labeling &ldquo;crypto week.&rdquo;
The U.S. House begins debate today on a series of crypto bills. Among them is the GENIUS Act already passed by the Senate &mdash; setting rules of the road for stablecoins.
Conservative estimates have Bitcoin rising to $130,000 from here. Outliers including Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner see the distinct possibility of &ldquo;high $200ks&rdquo; before year-end.
But Greg is less sanguine about the stock market at this stage&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;Any way you slice it, this market is stretched,&rdquo; Greg says of U.S. stocks.
&ldquo;The S&amp;P 500 would have to fall nearly 7% just to get back to its 200-day moving average, which is about how extended it was when printing new highs way back in February. That was before the late-month stumble that led up to the Liberation Day shenanigans.
&ldquo;The most recent leg of this melt-up rally has been so damn persistent, you would think we cured every disease and achieved world peace. The rally has been so strong, in fact, that the S&amp;P last recorded a 1% down day on June 12.
&ldquo;The last one before that? May 21. You have to go all the way back to April to find another. That&rsquo;s a whopping 55 trading days with just two significant drops!&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" /> Conditions like these don&rsquo;t last forever. All the same, a crash is not inevitable.
Greg reminds us of something colleague Zach Scheidt said in this space on Friday. &ldquo;Markets correct in two ways: through price and through time.
&ldquo;While it&rsquo;s possible we could see a drop similar to what we experienced back in February, the averages could just as easily run out of steam and chop along for weeks (or longer!) until they catch down to longer-term moving averages.&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" /> For the moment, watching the major U.S. stock averages is like watching paint dry.
None of the major U.S. averages has moved more than a quarter-percent. The S&amp;P 500 is up a mere four points to 6,264 &mdash; about 16 points below Thursday&rsquo;s record close.
Not much movement in precious metals either &mdash; gold at $3,346 and silver still comfortably above $38. Crude is down just over a buck to $67.38.
<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" />Uncle Sam&rsquo;s Surplus (Don&rsquo;t Celebrate)
<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 government recorded a budget surplus for the month of June &mdash; but don&rsquo;t break out the Champagne yet.
On Friday afternoon, the U.S. Treasury issued its monthly statement of income and outflows.
The month of June logged receipts of $526.4 billion, while spending totaled $499.4 billion &mdash; yielding a modest surplus of $27 billion.
Arguably, tariffs made the difference: Tariff revenue totaled $26.6 billion in June. In a typical month last year, tariffs brought in $7.2 billion.
Still, the long-term picture is ugly. From February through June &mdash; the first five full calendar months of the Trump 47 presidency &mdash; Uncle Sam ran a deficit of $667 billion. That&rsquo;s 18% higher than the same period last year.
The problem is that while revenue grew 2%... spending grew 7%.
DOGE might be having an impact on the federal payroll &mdash; down 2.8% since January &mdash; but it&rsquo;s having zero impact on spending. No wonder Elon Musk is so bitter&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: Brazil Tariffs, Pentagon&rsquo;s Stock Stake
<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 president&rsquo;s proposed 50% tariff on Brazil &mdash; mentioned in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trump-buys-his-first-mining-stock">Thursday&rsquo;s edition</a> &mdash; a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;My neighbor is an engineer at a large company that caters to the potato industry here in east Idaho. Mostly design/build. One piece they install is made of a type of stainless steel made only in Brazil.
&ldquo;It is a huge piece; the packing crate is made of 1" steel in order to withstand the ocean and land trip to Idaho. I'm curious how much it will cost now.&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 get that government investment in private companies is a concern &mdash; but at least they got preferred shares yielding a dividend,&rdquo; a reader writes about the Pentagon&rsquo;s 15% stake in MP Materials.
&ldquo;When they bailed out the banks in 2008, they got nothing. When they bailed out the airlines during COVID, they got nothing. Seems an investment with a yield is better than nothing.
&ldquo;And lest we forget Obama's expensive foray into the car business in Biden's Delaware. What did we piss away there? $500 mill?&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 comments about the Pentagon investing in a private company gave me a flashback to 1994 when I was at HQ Marine Corps,&rdquo; writes our final correspondent.
&ldquo;During this time many defense contractors were merging, and Lockheed had just merged with Martin Marietta. In a time before memes were circulated a hard-copy note was passed around with the headline &lsquo;U.S. Air Force to Merge With Lockheed/Martin.&rsquo; It was all tongue-in-cheek of course showing that military officers do have a sense of humor. A couple of excerpts:
<blockquote>The plans for the new company, to be called Air Lockietta, are somewhat sketchy but sources say that the former contractors will move into military housing at already closed military bases around the country. Air Lockietta believes that forcing their employees into government housing will save the company billions of dollars each year.</blockquote>
&ldquo;And:
<blockquote>The merger has left the other services scrambling to help themselves by looking into mergers of their own. The Navy is interested in a deal with Carnival Cruise Line, but Kathie Lee Gifford has said that she and Richard Simmons opposed a government takeover. The Army is saying it is keeping its options open but that it expects to close a deal with the Marines sometime in the near future. The Marines, upset at not being included in the Navy negotiations with Carnival, say they want to be affiliated with another organization.</blockquote>
<blockquote>Many say that the Air Lockietta merger will take a while to &lsquo;fit&rsquo; the people, though. 'We know how to spend money but we don't know a damn thing about making it,' said an unidentified USAF Lt. Col.</blockquote>
&ldquo;Still enjoy The 5 even with the cynicism.&rdquo;
Dave: Ah yes, pre-internet humor circulated by fax machine.
Still remember the one about the 1990s wars in the Balkans and how there was a desperate need for vowels. (At least <a href="https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/humor/clinton-deploys-vowels.html">one version</a> seems to have been taken from The Onion? Back when it was funny, of course&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

PowerStruggle

Power Struggle in PA

TaxReturn

Seriously, the Big Beautiful Bill couldn’t address any of the “gotcha taxes” sprinkled throughout the tax code?

Beware Four “Gotcha” Taxes

<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" />Trump&rsquo;s New Tariff Deadline
<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 Aug. 1 is the new July 9. But not really.
The Trump administration&rsquo;s tariff clock that was set to run out on Wednesday has been reset by another 23 days. Kinda-sorta.
The administration&rsquo;s messaging has been a bit muddled.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/45mO5p28va85HgMe2tqkuC/ddd581c73856143b481b2ac463ea9e24/Spencer.png" alt="spencer" width="540px" />
Let&rsquo;s do what we can to make sense of what&rsquo;s going on.
When we left you before the holiday weekend, the 90-day pause on &ldquo;reciprocal tariffs&rdquo; was set to end this Wednesday July 9.
Then on Friday, Independence Day, Bloomberg reported the following: &ldquo;U.S. President Donald Trump said his administration will probably start notifying trading partners Friday of the new U.S. tariff on their exports effective Aug. 1, while reiterating a preference for simplicity over complicated negotiations five days before his deadline for deals.&rdquo;
Yesterday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent clarified on CNN: &ldquo;President Trump is going to send letters to some of our trading partners saying that &lsquo;if you don&rsquo;t move things along, then on Aug. 1, you will boomerang back to your April 2 tariff level.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Supposedly these letters will start going out at midday today &mdash; and all of them will be issued by Wednesday. So in that sense, the July 9 deadline is still in effect &mdash; but there&rsquo;s still, potentially, room for negotiations before Aug. 1.

Amid that backdrop, Paradigm&rsquo;s macro maven Jim Rickards expects more surprises come Wednesday &mdash; what he describes as &ldquo;an economic &lsquo;kill shot&rsquo; on 194 countries around the world.&rdquo;
How will markets react? &ldquo;Ultimately, investors who are positioned ahead of time could make a fortune,&rdquo; says Paradigm publisher Matt Insley. &ldquo;The ones who don&rsquo;t are almost sure to suffer.&rdquo;
Matt recorded a 62-second message to walk you through what you need to do to prepare: <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2456927">Click here to watch it right away</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" /> The first of those tariff letters just went out on schedule &mdash; and it&rsquo;s not going over well in the stock market.
Japan and South Korea will be hit with 25% tariffs effective Aug. 1. And with that, the S&amp;P 500 has slid more than three-quarters of a percent from last Thursday&rsquo;s record close &mdash; 6,228 at last check. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s losses are about the same; the Dow&rsquo;s are a bit steeper.
Precious metals are selling off, but not much &mdash; gold at $3,326 and silver at $36.63. Crude is up to $67.63, the highest since the big slide two weeks ago today. Bitcoin is hanging tough at $108,215.
There are some additional cross-currents on the tariff front we&rsquo;re watching&hellip;
<ul>
<li>The White House is threatening the European Union with an additional 17% tariff on farm exports &mdash; in addition to the 20% tariffs threatened on all EU goods if no deal can be reached by Aug. 1</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>On social media the president threatened an additional 10% tariff on countries aligning with the BRICS constellation of countries &mdash; an announcement timed for Day 1 of a BRICS leaders summit in Rio de Janeiro. (This year&rsquo;s gathering is shaping up to be a nothingburger; neither Chinese President Xi nor Russian President Putin is there.)</li>
</ul>
<a id="2"></a>
<ul>
<li>Before the president announced 25% tariffs on Japan, Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said, &ldquo;We will not easily compromise&rdquo; on trade. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/countdown-to-liberation-day-2-0">As we mentioned on Thursday</a>, Japan was widely expected to be among the first countries to cut a deal with Washington last spring &mdash; but it hasn&rsquo;t worked out that way.</li>
</ul>
We&rsquo;ll leave it there for today. We need to move on to the fallout from passage of the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill&rdquo; in Washington&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" />Debt Binge
<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" />Against what seemed like overwhelming odds,the president&rsquo;s gargantuan tax-and-spend bill is now law. And on his timetable.
Shortly after we hit &ldquo;send&rdquo; on last Thursday&rsquo;s edition ahead of the holiday weekend, the House passed the Senate version of the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill&rdquo; with no changes.
There was no messy conference committee hashing out a compromise between the House and Senate versions of the bill, necessitating a new floor vote in both chambers that could have quickly gone off the rails. Instead, the president got the Fourth of July signing ceremony he wanted.
How did it happen?
<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" /> Answer: The House&rsquo;s &ldquo;fiscal conservatives&rdquo; folded like the proverbial lawn chair. It was a true profile in cowardice.
From The Wall Street Journal&hellip;
<blockquote>Less than a month ago, 38 House Republicans led by Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.) signed a letter saying that they were &lsquo;unequivocal&rsquo; in limiting the size of tax cuts by linking them to spending cuts. The House plan, which said that tax cuts couldn&rsquo;t be $2.5 trillion more than spending cuts, was the &lsquo;minimum standard&rsquo; for their support of a Senate-passed bill.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The Senate bill fell more than $500 billion short of that target, and in all it will increase budget deficits by $3.4 trillion through 2034, compared with doing nothing, according to the Congressional Budget Office.</blockquote>
In the end, every single one of those 38 caved &mdash; even Chip Roy of Texas, who <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/trumps-big-bloated-budget-boondoggle">railed</a> against the Senate bill the day before the vote, promising &ldquo;to stay here every day until we get it right.&rdquo;
The only &ldquo;no&rdquo; votes on the Republican side came from the heroic Kentuckian Thomas Massie&hellip; and Pennsylvania&rsquo;s Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a swing district in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is proving himself even more capable of keeping a fractious caucus in line than Nancy Pelosi.
Either that or the &ldquo;fiscal conservatives&rdquo; ditch their principles at the first thought of a mean tweet by Donald Trump&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" />The passage of this 887-page legislative monstrosity is even more remarkable in light of events just over six months ago.
Last December, one of those &ldquo;partial-government shutdowns&rdquo; was looming as the lame-duck session of Congress was winding down its work for the year. With Donald Trump&rsquo;s blessing, Johnson put forth a 1,547-page kitchen-sink &ldquo;continuing resolution.&rdquo;
It was a watershed moment: Everyday folks on social media employed AI to dig out the bill&rsquo;s most ridiculous provisions. Elon Musk marshaled his followers on X to call Capitol Hill in outrage.
And it worked. The bill was slimmed down to 118 pages.
We dared to wonder if that episode might mark an end to at least one aspect of business-as-usual in Congress.
<blockquote>➢ Just a hunch, but this third party is probably one of Elon&rsquo;s wild hairs that he&rsquo;ll forget about in a few weeks. Mr. Market definitely doesn&rsquo;t approve: Tesla shares are down 7.4% on the day.</blockquote>
<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" />Perhaps the biggest outrage of the Senate bill is the lifting of the debt ceiling.
The ceiling kicked in at the start of this year &mdash; effectively freezing the national debt at $36.2 trillion. For the past six months, the Treasury has resorted to various accounting tricks to stay under the ceiling &mdash; such as borrowing from government employee pension funds.
The new law lifts the debt ceiling by $5 trillion to $41.2 trillion.
Considering that Uncle Sam has already spent about $800 billion he didn&rsquo;t have for the last six months&hellip; that leaves about $4.2 trillion of wiggle room.
It&rsquo;s highly likely the debt ceiling will once again kick in before the end of Trump&rsquo;s term. In the event of a recession or a major war, it&rsquo;s guaranteed to kick in before the end of Trump&rsquo;s term.
<blockquote>➢ No surprise, but the bond market is selling off in reaction to the bill&rsquo;s passage &mdash; pushing yields sharply higher. The 10-year Treasury note is up to 4.38% and the 30-year T-bond is up to 4.92%.</blockquote>
<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" /> Taxing Matters: What the Bill Means to You
<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 political and debt considerations notwithstanding&hellip; what do the tax provisions in the bill mean for you?
The most important thing to know &mdash; and an unquestionably good thing &mdash; is that the tax brackets that came into effect with the Trump tax cuts of 2017 are now permanent. Or as permanent as anything is in Washington, D.C.
Had those tax cuts expired as scheduled at year-end, folks currently in the 22% tax bracket would have gone back to 25%. That&rsquo;s just one example; it&rsquo;s good news for nearly everyone at every income level.
That said, a few things do change. Some highlights&hellip;
<ul>
<li>The standard deduction for 2025 &mdash; previously set at $15,000 for singles and $30,000 for couples &mdash; rises to $15,750 for singles and $31,500 for couples. As before, it will continue to rise each year with inflation</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Also this year, the $2,000 child tax credit is reset to $2,200 and will be indexed to inflation</li>
</ul>
There are also several provisions that have an expiration date &mdash; because of the peculiar budget math of Washington, D.C.
<ul>
<li>The SALT deduction for state and local taxes rises from $10,000 to $40,000 &mdash; but only until tax year 2029</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The &ldquo;no taxes on tips&rdquo; and &ldquo;no taxes on overtime&rdquo; provisions that the president promised during the campaign last year have income limits and expire at the end of 2028</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Folks over 65 can claim an extra deduction of $6,000 per person per year &mdash; on top of the existing standard deduction and senior deduction &mdash; through 2028. It starts phasing out at $75,000 for singles, $150,000 for couples. This provision was passed in lieu of the president&rsquo;s &ldquo;no taxes on Social Security&rdquo; promise. (More about that below.)</li>
</ul>
Those are the broad outlines. As always, consult a tax professional for more details &mdash; especially since many of these provisions affect tax year 2025 and the return you&rsquo;ll file next spring.
<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" /> Also worth a mention: The estate-tax levels set under the 2017 Trump tax cuts &mdash; which were on track to expire at year-end &mdash; now remain in effect. 
That means more family-owned businesses can stay in the family after the first generation passes on. Too often over the decades, heirs have had to sell out to corporate behemoths because that&rsquo;s the only way they could raise the cash to pay the estate tax.
<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 thing, not tax related: If you buy health insurance on the Obamacare &ldquo;exchanges,&rdquo; expect this bill to jack up your premiums.
Obamacare has been brutal for small-business owners and the self-employed &mdash; many of whom found themselves paying dramatically higher premiums when the law kicked in a little over a decade ago.
Well, more pain is coming: The Kaiser Family Foundation says premiums on the exchanges are set to rise an average $1,296 per year. And you&rsquo;ll have to update your personal information every year, including income and immigration status. No more automatic enrollment.
<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" />Social Security Stretches the Truth
<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 the insult to your intelligence that landed in your inbox on the Fourth if you&rsquo;re on the Social Security Administration&rsquo;s mailing list&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/72EMhe1ctAIpwYr71gCV4q/57acb098a18f36404359765b96fb3a1f/SS.png" alt="ss" width="540px" />
Never mind the shamelessly political nature of the email. We&rsquo;re getting used to that from both parties as America slips ever closer to banana-republic status.
The real outrage is the email&rsquo;s claim that &ldquo;the bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits.&rdquo;
And this gem: &ldquo;The new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples. Additionally, it provides an enhanced deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older, ensuring that retirees can keep more of what they have earned.&rdquo;
Folks who can&rsquo;t keep up with every bit of news related to this bill might be led to believe that, well, federal income taxes on Social Security benefits are being eliminated for most beneficiaries.
<blockquote>➢ Why did Congress write the bill this way? Because when seniors pay income tax on their Social Security benefits, a substantial portion of that money goes into the Social Security trust fund. If Social Security benefits were no longer subject to income tax, the trust fund would be depleted even sooner than the current estimate of 2033.</blockquote>
And of course, the email says nothing about how in 2029 everything goes back to the way it was in 2024&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" />Comic Relief
<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 latest headlines about the financier Jeffrey Epstein&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4nU9cbzGEcu2Fcc1swuntf/8b4a09bc44f2dd69982b679e1790ef1a/Epstein-list.png" alt="epstein list" width="540px" />
On a more serious note, expect a comprehensive 2025 update of our Nov. 21, 2023 edition &mdash; titled <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/from-jfk-to-jeffrey-epstein">&ldquo;From JFK to Jeffrey Epstein&rdquo;</a> &mdash; sometime this month or next.
Sorry, no space for a mailbag today in light of the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill&rsquo;s&rdquo; passage.
We did get a boatload of reader feedback to our Independence Day edition &mdash; which was a reprise of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/9-11-the-financial-crisis-and-covid">&ldquo;the cynicism issue&rdquo;</a> from earlier this spring. We&rsquo;ll dive into it tomorrow!
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

Tariff-man-trump

The Trump administration’s tariff clock that was set to run out on Wednesday has been reset by another 23 days. Kinda-sorta.

Trump’s New Tariff Deadline

<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" />Countdown to Liberation Day 2.0
<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" />Three down, 54 to go. And only six days remaining.
As you&rsquo;ll recall, Donald Trump announced a series of sweeping tariffs on &ldquo;Liberation Day,&rdquo; April 2. They included what he called &ldquo;reciprocal tariffs&rdquo; against 57 countries.
"Whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them,&rdquo; is how he explained it in March. &ldquo;That's reciprocal - back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax them.&rdquo;
After the bond market freaked out in reaction to the announcement, Trump declared a 90-day pause to the reciprocal tariffs on April 9.
The plan was to launch negotiations with each of those 57 countries, with an eye toward reaching new comprehensive trade deals by the end of that 90-day window.
<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 90-day window closes next Wednesday, July 9. To date, the Trump administration has come to terms with exactly&hellip; three countries.
An agreement with the United Kingdom was reached in May. An agreement with Vietnam was reached just yesterday &mdash; perhaps one reason the S&amp;P 500 rallied to a record close.
There&rsquo;s also a kinda-sorta deal with China &mdash; but it&rsquo;s only a tentative agreement while the details are hammered out ahead of a separate 90-day deadline on Aug. 11.
Really, that total of three countries is just two.

What will Trump do next week? In the estimation of Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards, Trump is about to &ldquo;go nuclear.&rdquo;
[Readers of Jim&rsquo;s premium advisory The Situation Report are already up to speed on this developing story the mainstream doesn&rsquo;t see coming. If you&rsquo;re not among them, <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2456626">please heed Jim&rsquo;s urgent warning at this link</a>.]

So what is it that&rsquo;s been taking so long?
<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 answer, perhaps, lies with the country that many experts thought would be the one most eager to sign a deal &mdash; Japan.
After all, Japan is a close U.S. ally. Exports are a cornerstone of Japan&rsquo;s economy &mdash; especially cars. A deal would be an early win for Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, in office less than a year.
At the start it looked promising. Japanese officials were among the first to pay a call on the White House only days after Trump announced the 90-day pause.
<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 something went off the rails &mdash; quickly.
We still don&rsquo;t know what exactly &mdash; but Bloomberg News gave us hints a few days after the meeting when it reported that &ldquo;Japan intends to push back against any U.S. effort to bring it into an economic bloc aligned against China because of the importance of Tokyo&rsquo;s trade ties with Beijing, according to current and former Japanese government officials.&rdquo;
In early May, Japan&rsquo;s chief negotiator Ryosei Akazawa dug in his heels: &ldquo;We have been telling them that the entire series of tariffs are regrettable and have strongly insisted they be revised. Unless this demand is acknowledged in an ultimate package, there is no way we can agree to a deal.&rdquo;
By early June, Prime Minister Ishiba himself was saying his government was in no mood to compromise. Yesterday, he reinforced that stance: "Japan is different from other countries as we are the largest investor in the United States, creating jobs.&rdquo;
And if the lack of a deal means fewer exports of Japanese autos to America, Ishiba says Japan will get by: "If auto sales to the U.S. are bound to drop, we will boost domestic demand and diversify export destinations to protect Japanese industries.&rdquo;
If Team Trump can&rsquo;t reach a deal with Japan, how likely is it they&rsquo;ll come to terms with the other 53 remaining countries before next Wednesday?
Liberation Day 2.0, anyone?

<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 why Jim Rickards thinks the trade war is on the verge of &ldquo;going nuclear.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Trump&rsquo;s great &lsquo;Tariff Reckoning&rsquo; has begun,&rdquo; he says.
&ldquo;The ones who see it coming have the chance to reap a fortune. The ones who don&rsquo;t could be in for a lifetime of financial ruin. I don&rsquo;t want you to get left behind.&rdquo;
Jim recorded an urgent message from Pentagon City to help you be among the prepared. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2456626">Click here to watch it now</a>. This is information the mainstream still hasn&rsquo;t figured out &mdash; <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2456626">and won&rsquo;t figure out until it&rsquo;s too late</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" />How Strong Is the Job Market, Really?
<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&rsquo;s all the excitement about with the job numbers?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/30ieMpiLetOJwCC0kw8Mvo/a796b2296f958f71f09659074cecb620/BreakingNEws.png" alt="breaking news" width="540px" />
OK, so yes, the wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured 147,000 new jobs for June. And yes, that&rsquo;s more than the typical Wall Street economist&rsquo;s expectation for 110,000.
But so what? As we&rsquo;ve been saying for several months now, it takes a bare minimum of 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with population growth. And the monthly average going back a year now is 149,000. Hardly a &ldquo;robust&rdquo; job market.
The official unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1%. The last time it was under 4% was April of last year.
<blockquote>➢ For the record: Since January, the total number of federal government job losses is 69,000 &mdash; about 2.8% of the federal workforce. It does seem as if DOGE is having a measurable impact on the federal payroll, even if its impact on federal spending is nil.</blockquote>
<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 always, Mr. Market views these numbers not through the prism of &ldquo;Is it good for American prosperity?&rdquo; &mdash; but rather &ldquo;What does it mean for Fed rate cuts?&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s not just Donald Trump who wants lower interest rates; so does Wall Street. Easy money is the lubricant that&rsquo;s kept financial markets humming ever since the 2008 bank bailouts.
Today&rsquo;s jobs report will be the last one before the Federal Reserve holds its next policy-setting meeting at the end of this month. On the theory that there&rsquo;s no big, sudden deterioration in the labor market, futures traders now assess a less than 5% probability the Fed will cut interest rates on July 30.
<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" /> U.S. markets closed at 1:00 p.m. today ahead of the Independence Day holiday tomorrow. The biggest reaction to the job numbers showed up in the bond market.
Bonds sold off big, pushing yields higher. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note jumped to 4.34%, the highest in nearly two weeks. The thinking is that if the Fed won&rsquo;t be lowering short-term rates soon, then long-term rates won&rsquo;t be coming down either.
The stock market shook off any no-rate-cut concerns: The S&amp;P 500 jumped over three quarters of a percent to close at 6,279, another record. The Nasdaq also closed at a record high; the Dow will have to wait till next week.
Gold sold off modestly to $3,332 while silver rallied to $36.83. Crude slipped back below $67. Bitcoin has pushed back $109,000.
Meanwhile in Washington, the House is debating the 887-page Senate version of the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill.&rdquo; Well, they would be debating it were it not for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York).
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/HCfXwGa8DfdefXfDLQFMi/0a0dd991fc3c9d36ea9ed94138ff78fe/Michael.png" alt="michael tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;In any sane era, this bill would be laughed out of Congress,&rdquo; colleague Sean Ring writes in today&rsquo;s Rude Awakening. &ldquo;But this is not a sane era. This is the age of Elastic Money and Infinite Excuses. The MAGA crowd used to chant &lsquo;Drain the Swamp.&rsquo; Now they&rsquo;re filling it back up with tax credits, unfunded mandates and Musk&rsquo;s salty tears.&rdquo;
The whole thing is filled with pithy lines I wish I&rsquo;d written myself &mdash; <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/trumps-big-bloated-budget-boondoggle">go read</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" />Tesla: The Technology vs. the Stock
<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 all of Tesla&rsquo;s many woes this year, Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta says the company has achieved real breakthroughs with self-driving vehicles: &ldquo;It changed my life.&rdquo;
The company announced more bad news just yesterday: Global vehicle sales in the second quarter were down 13.5% from a year earlier.
Enrique would have added to the sales total this spring &mdash; but after shopping around he opted for a used 2024 Model Y.
Still, he was blown away. &ldquo;I started using it on real roads, during real commutes, with my kids in the back seat. That&rsquo;s when it sank in that self-driving cars aren&rsquo;t some faraway technology. It&rsquo;s here, it&rsquo;s real, and it&rsquo;s going to change your life soon &mdash; if it hasn&rsquo;t already.&rdquo;
Enrique published a groundbreaking report on &ldquo;autonomous&rdquo; vehicles more than five years ago. For him, the proverbial rubber just hit the road.
He started out with an easy 15-minute trip to the gym, driving solo as he put the FSD &ldquo;full self-driving&rdquo; feature to use.
<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 first big test came when he took his 8-year-old daughter to New Jersey for a meeting, and then a Yankees game.
&ldquo;Driving down there can be brutal, so I was interested to see how FSD would handle it. We got in the car, set the destination in northern New Jersey and let it go.
&ldquo;I only touched the steering wheel twice during the entire 2&frac12;-hour drive, so we could get some water and go to the bathroom.
&ldquo;Sure, you still need to pay attention to the road in the Tesla (it is &lsquo;supervised&rsquo; self-driving). You can&rsquo;t be on your phone or anything. But the stress levels were a fraction of what they normally would have been.
&ldquo;Over the next 18 months, millions of people will go through the same shift I just did.
And when they do, everything about how we move, commute and think about cars will start to change forever.&rdquo;
To be clear, Enrique&rsquo;s enthusiasm for his Tesla vehicle does not necessarily translate to enthusiasm for TSLA shares. &ldquo;I would wait for the earnings forecasts to stabilize,&rdquo; he said yesterday during the Paradigm editorial team&rsquo;s monthly Zoom call. &ldquo;Until then, I&rsquo;d stay away.&rdquo;
<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" />Comic Relief
<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 haven&rsquo;t had much to say in this space about the mayor&rsquo;s race in New York &mdash; but your editor did get a chuckle when encountering the following today.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/ohw4BFXtuqniWgxESXurz/6b7f33858341fb413e5e30f2b58313ec/florida.png" alt="florida" 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: AI and 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" />&ldquo;Data Centers and Crypto Mining&rdquo; says the subject line of a reader&rsquo;s email reacting to portions of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/one-billion-users">Monday&rsquo;s</a> and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-end-of-visa-and-mastercard">Tuesday&rsquo;s</a> editions.
&ldquo;If the data centers and crypto miners want more power, let them buy land from willing sellers at the current market prices. Make sure they buy enough land to put up wind generator towers and let them produce their own power, rather than put additional strains on the current power grid.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Hear, hear.
At first, it seemed Elon Musk&rsquo;s xAI venture took this message to heart &mdash; installing nearly three dozen dedicated natural gas turbines to power its huge data center in Memphis.
But last month, the Memphis Chamber of Commerce issued a statement saying an undisclosed number of those turbines have been taken offline. And the rest will be used only for backup power now that xAI has been able to hook up to a new substation operated by Memphis Light, Gas and Water.
Then there&rsquo;s the newest announcement from OpenAI on Tuesday &mdash; agreeing to lease 4.5 gigawatts of computing power from Oracle for $30 billion a year. Supposedly it&rsquo;s the next phase in the much-ballyhooed &ldquo;Stargate&rdquo; project between OpenAI, Oracle and Japan&rsquo;s SoftBank Group.
For the record, 4.5 gigawatts equals about one-quarter of all the juice currently consumed by data centers in this country.
&ldquo;Potential locations for new data center sites include Texas, Michigan, Wisconsin, Wyoming, New Mexico, Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania,&rdquo; says the Financial Times. &ldquo;Oracle will also expand a 1.2 GW Stargate facility in Abilene, Texas, which is being developed and financed by data center start-up Crusoe.&rdquo;
The deal sent ORCL&rsquo;s share price to a record. But there&rsquo;s absolutely nothing in the FT&rsquo;s story that says where the electricity for these projects is supposed to come from.
Which only reinforces our skepticism that Stargate will ever come to fruition &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/stargate">at least in the form touted at the White House the day after Trump&rsquo;s inauguration</a>.
Thanks for keeping the conversation going. There will be new investment possibilities emerging from the AI-and-electricity story &mdash; in all likelihood before Donald Trump&rsquo;s scheduled &ldquo;AI Action Plan&rdquo; on July 23. Stay tuned&hellip;
Happy Independence Day,
<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

image (105)

That 90-day tariff pause closes next Wednesday, July 9. To date, the Trump administration has come to terms with exactly… three countries.

Countdown to Liberation Day 2.0

<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" /> When Trump Doubled Down on Crypto
<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" />July 2024: Trump&rsquo;s Crypto Pivot in Nashville
Last July, Donald Trump took the stage at the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trumps-bitcoin-pledge">Bitcoin 2024</a> conference in Nashville and declared: &ldquo;I will be the pro-Bitcoin president.&rdquo;
This was a dramatic shift from his post-presidency skepticism &mdash; remember, in 2021 he called Bitcoin &ldquo;a scam&rdquo; and complained it was &ldquo;another currency competing against the dollar.&rdquo;
Now, Trump was all-in, warning: &ldquo;If we don&rsquo;t embrace crypto and Bitcoin technology, China will&hellip; and we cannot let China dominate.&rdquo;
Trump promised to:
<ul>
<li>Make the U.S. the &ldquo;crypto capital of the world&rdquo;</li>
<li>Stockpile Bitcoin seized by the government</li>
<li>Fire SEC Chair Gary Gensler on Day 1</li>
<li>Block any move toward a central bank digital currency (CBDC)</li>
<li>Ensure crypto is &ldquo;mined, minted and made in the USA.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
The crowd went wild, but details were thin. Trump&rsquo;s embrace of crypto was less about libertarian ideals and more about government muscle &mdash; an odd twist for an asset built on decentralization.
<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" /> October 2024: Sherrod Brown vs. the Crypto Lobby
By October, the crypto industry had zeroed in on a new target: Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, one of crypto&rsquo;s fiercest critics and a major obstacle to industry-friendly legislation.
The race between Brown and Republican challenger Bernie Moreno became the most expensive Senate contest in Ohio&rsquo;s history, thanks to a flood of crypto cash.
<ul>
<li><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/crypto-playing-politics">Crypto PACs,</a> led by Fairshake and Defend American Jobs, spent over $40 million backing Moreno and attacking Brown.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Moreno, a longtime blockchain enthusiast, was painted as the pro-innovation, pro-crypto candidate. Brown, meanwhile, was hammered as anti-crypto and out-of-touch.</li>
</ul>
The crypto lobby&rsquo;s strategy: Use big money to oust opponents and elect allies. As one Fairshake spokesman put it: &ldquo;Sherrod Brown was a top opponent of cryptocurrency and thanks to our efforts, he will be leaving the Senate.&rdquo;
Meanwhile, Tyler Winklevoss, co-founder of Gemini, crowed: &ldquo;The crypto army is striking!&rdquo;
Election Day 2024 was a dream come true for crypto. The crypto lobby&rsquo;s $40 million gamble paid off, sending a message to D.C.: &ldquo;Support us, or we&rsquo;ll support your opponent.&rdquo;
Crypto PACs claimed credit for Moreno&rsquo;s win, calling it a &ldquo;bold&rdquo; move that resonated with lawmakers everywhere.
In total, according to The New York Times, crypto groups across the country spent more than $130 million to elect pro-crypto candidates, helping put at least 18 new crypto-friendly senators and 263 House members in office.
In the aftermath of Nov. 5, Bitcoin and crypto stocks surged with Trump&rsquo;s victory, and Bitcoin hit new highs.
<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" /> December 2024: Paul Atkins Tapped for SEC
With victory in hand, Trump nominated <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/closer-to-crypto-capital-of-the-world">Paul Atkins</a> &mdash; a longtime crypto advocate and former SEC commissioner &mdash; to replace Gary Gensler as SEC chair.
Atkins is a known quantity in D.C. and a favorite with the crypto crowd, having co-chaired the Token Alliance, a major blockchain lobbying group. He&rsquo;s promised to focus on &ldquo;free markets, capital formation, investor choice and innovation&rdquo; &mdash; music to the industry&rsquo;s ears.
Atkins&rsquo; arrival marks a sharp pivot from Gary Gensler&rsquo;s regulatory clampdown. Atkins openly slammed Gensler&rsquo;s approach as &ldquo;a direct threat to innovation.&rdquo; Instead, he calls for clear, straightforward rules to help the crypto market reach its potential. He&rsquo;s even got skin in the game: over $6 million in crypto-related investments

[URGENT: The SEC is poised to unleash a $30 trillion market shakeup TODAY &mdash; an event that could instantly affect your 401(k) and IRA.
If you do just one thing today, make sure it&rsquo;s this: <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2456221">Click here now</a> to watch a critical briefing and discover the steps to amplify your retirement savings from this unprecedented, fast-moving development.]

Did the crypto lobby get Trump over the finish line? Indeed, crypto played a significant role in Trump&rsquo;s win. According to Trump campaign strategist Chris LaCivita, crypto issues were key to engaging diverse voters &mdash; including young people and Black and Asian voters &mdash; all of whom have higher rates of crypto ownership and have been historically tough to reach.
Crypto became a bridge to new constituencies, and massive spending by crypto PACs didn&rsquo;t just help Trump; it reshaped the political landscape, ousting high-profile skeptics like Sherrod Brown and ushering in a wave of pro-crypto lawmakers.
As Kristin Smith of the Blockchain Association put it: &ldquo;This is a huge victory for crypto&hellip; we&rsquo;ve got the right folks in place to get the policy settled once and for all.&rdquo;
In short, crypto didn&rsquo;t just help propel Trump to victory &mdash; it triggered a political earthquake, blasting old alliances and redrawing the very blueprint of power in Washington.
<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" />Documenting the Danger of FOMO
<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 S&amp;P 500&rsquo;s 22% surge in under three months is &ldquo;the kind of move that turns cautious investors into aggressive buyers,&rdquo; says Paradigm editor Davis Wilson at The Million Mission. 
While individual stocks like Nvidia (+62%), Meta (+42%) and Palantir (+68%) have posted &ldquo;incredible short-term gains,&rdquo; Wilson warns against letting FOMO (fear of missing out) drive investment decisions.
He notes: &ldquo;FOMO isn&rsquo;t just a casual phrase investors throw around. It&rsquo;s one of the most well-documented behavioral traps in finance.&rdquo;
Citing studies by Barber and Odean (2000) and Kaniel, Saar and Titman (2008), Wilson explains that &ldquo;investors who chase recent winners tend to underperform&hellip; not because they&rsquo;re wrong about the business, but because they&rsquo;re late.
&ldquo;Go back over the last decade and you&rsquo;ll see it clearly:
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;August 2015: China devaluation scare &mdash; followed by a quick 15% rebound</li>
<li>December 2018: Powell panic and a sharp sell-off &mdash; followed by a monster 2019 rally</li>
<li>March 2020: COVID crash &mdash; followed by one of the strongest bull runs in history</li>
<li>October 2022: Fed tightening peak &mdash; right before a huge multimonth rally</li>
<li>April 2025: Tariff-driven dip &mdash; now up 22% in under three months.</li>
</ul>
&ldquo;Every one of those was a time of fear,&rdquo; Davis says. &ldquo;Headlines were screaming &lsquo;sell.&rsquo; Yet every one of them turned out to be an incredible time to buy.&rdquo;
He cautions that the real opportunity rarely feels obvious in the moment: &ldquo;Back in April, sentiment was weak. The market was in a slump. Trump was making noise about tariffs. Uncertainty was high. And great companies were quietly trading at a discount.
&ldquo;That was the opportunity,&rdquo; says Davis. &ldquo;But of course, it didn&rsquo;t feel like one at the time. It never does.&rdquo;
Evidence from past market slumps highlights the importance of patience and resisting FOMO. &ldquo;Patience pays,&rdquo; he concludes, &ldquo;it always does.&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 S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq are rebounding &mdash; up 0.30% and 0.80% respectively &mdash; as tech shares rally after a recent pullback; notably, tech names like Nvidia and AMD are up about 2% today. In contrast, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is barely treading water.
Commodities are in lockstep: Oil&rsquo;s up 0.75%, just under $66 for a barrel of WTI. Silver, similarly, is up 0.70% to $36.66, but gold&rsquo;s barely in the green at $3,351.90 per ounce. At last check, the crypto market is in fine fiddle, with Bitcoin up 3% to $108,740; simultaneously, Ethereum&rsquo;s up 3.60% to $2,500.
The ADP employment report surprised with a loss of 33,000 private-sector jobs in June, sharply missing consensus expectations of a 103,000 gain. While ADP&rsquo;s track record as a predictor for the official Labor Department numbers (due tomorrow) is weak, the negative result signals a note of caution.
<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 Doctor (Copper) Is In
<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;Foreign central bankers foresee inflation, inflation and more inflation,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s acclaimed geologist Byron King. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t take my word for inflation; ask the estimable &lsquo;Dr. Copper,&rsquo; with its Ph.D. in economic forecasting and a long history of being right,&rdquo; he says.
&ldquo;That is, the price of copper is up over 15% year-over-year, reflecting growing demand and tighter supply.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3K2Ghkp2p2KzYSrSkHjqct/f59f24dbd12eabccada493117c8381f4/copper.png" alt="copper" width="400px" />

Ingot and elemental metal from Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan. (BWK collection)
Copper demand is surging due to ongoing economic growth in developing countries and the global expansion of electric vehicles (EVs), which require significant copper for manufacturing.
Byron notes that while Americans may not notice, &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a global EV glut out of China that&rsquo;s happening everywhere else on the planet except here.&rdquo;
In developed nations, demand is also being driven by efforts to modernize outdated power grids and the rapid construction of AI data centers, which &ldquo;use large amounts of copper for wiring, as well as radiators to cool things down,&rdquo; Byron explains.
At the same time, copper supply is tightening. Byron highlights a remarkable recent deal: &ldquo;Just last week a consortium of Chinese copper smelters agreed to process copper concentrate from Chilean miner Antofagasta (ANFGF) for free, as in $0.00.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/44pVCeIxypiXXDrVhkBCFQ/6b1562517430eca0230f1597c98b0a0a/railcar.png" alt="railcar" width="400px" />

Copper concentrate fills a railcar in Peru
This unprecedented agreement &mdash; where Chinese refiners &ldquo;are giving away their refining services&hellip; for zero, zippo, nada&rdquo; &mdash; underscores how acute the shortage has become.
Byron points out that this &ldquo;sets a new low&rdquo; for refining charges and signals &ldquo;the absolute, real and growing scarcity of copper concentrate.&rdquo; While other analysts call this outcome &ldquo;better than expected&rdquo; &mdash; revealing just how imbalanced the copper market is today.
<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" />Sabotage: Oil Tankers Targeted
<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 string of mysterious explosions has rocked oil tankers in the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, with five vessels hit by suspected limpet mines in 2025. 
The attacks have targeted ships soon after they visited Russian ports, fueling speculation that this is not random but a coordinated sabotage campaign.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/612oqq9q3oHukW8hvW2LUe/55a41287488c73aeeae5c72dbefae322/map.png" alt="map" width="540px" />

Courtesy: Lloyd&rsquo;s List Intelligence, Seasearcher, FT
Some security experts are pointing the finger at Ukraine, given its history of covert operations against Russian interests, though Kyiv has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Ukrainian military intelligence, however, labeled one of the attacked ships, the Vilamoura, as part of Russia&rsquo;s &ldquo;shadow fleet,&rdquo; hinting at deeper intrigue.
But not all the attacks fit the same pattern. For example, the Vilamoura was hit on its hull, not its side, leading some to suspect other actors might be involved &mdash; possibly Libyan groups or other state-backed saboteurs.
Four of the targeted tankers also called at Libyan ports, a country rife with rival factions and oil smuggling, and all five had stopped off Malta for supplies.
The vessels involved are owned by prominent Greek and Cypriot shipping interests, and there&rsquo;s no evidence they breached Western oil price caps.
The attacks have heightened maritime security fears, with the U.N.&rsquo;s International Maritime Organization pledging to monitor the situation closely.
Still, the timing and location of the attacks, plus the use of Soviet-era mines, suggest a deliberate campaign tied to fallout from sanctions on Russian oil. The shipping world is on edge, wondering who&rsquo;s really behind these shadowy blasts &mdash; and who might be next.
<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" />Urban Safari, Rodent 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" /> Suzanne Reisman, NYC&rsquo;s self-appointed &ldquo;rat whisperer,&rdquo; is leading the creepily curious on a $40 Garbage &amp; Rats walking tour through Manhattan&rsquo;s aromatic alleys. 
Donning fuzzy rat ears, Reisman reveals the secret lives of Norway rats (spoiler: they&rsquo;re from Asia, not Oslo), who arrived centuries ago and decided Manhattan&rsquo;s trash was a five-star buffet.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/48cBskO0FuYaUjjXhkGG6w/88da0f3d80ad385f1bd4b673c56be928/rat-whisperer.png" alt="rat whisperer" width="540px" />

NYC&rsquo;s &ldquo;rat whisperer&rdquo; Courtesy: X
Tour-goers learn that rats are basically the Casanovas of the animal kingdom &mdash; with up to 20 romantic encounters per day. Meanwhile, sightings of lap dog-sized rats elicit the kind of excitement usually reserved for rare birds, while stops at historic rat-fighting venues add a dash of the grisly.
Reisman, a graduate of the Rat Academy &mdash; a free program run by New York City&rsquo;s sanitation and health departments &mdash; delivers history and trash etiquette with the flair of a stand-up comic. And her tours sell out to everyone from rat-curious tourists to locals nostalgic for old-school grime.
The real lesson: Entrepreneurship creates opportunity, even turning rat watching into a moneymaking venture.
Well, that&rsquo;s a rat &mdash; er,wrap &mdash; today. We&rsquo;ll be back with a fresh episode tomorrow. Take care!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

Trump-Bitcoin

Did the crypto lobby help get Trump over the finish line on Election Day? 

Trump’s Crypto Pivot

shutterstock 1795360600 (1)

What’s the advantage of using stablecoins versus actual dollars?

The End of Visa and Mastercard

<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" />Mark This Date: May 14, 2027
<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" />Assuming you&rsquo;re old enough&hellip; do you remember the first time you had regular internet access?
If you do, make a mental note.
For all intents and purposes, the dawn of the internet can be dated to 1969 &mdash; when the U.S. government first switched on ARPANET, connecting users at four universities.
Of course, it didn&rsquo;t really take off in the United States until the mid-1990s &mdash; roughly the same time frame as Microsoft&rsquo;s launch of Windows 95 and AOL&rsquo;s relentless mailings of CD-ROMs. (Remember that?)
By 2005, the internet reached 1 billion people worldwide. It took 36 years.
<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" />Cryptocurrency is on track to achieve the same feat in less than 20 years.
Already, 16&frac12; years after Bitcoin&rsquo;s launch, the number of worldwide users totals roughly 580 million.
The 1 billion number is easily in reach given the current path.
&ldquo;In 2020, only five years ago, it was around 100 million,&rdquo; says Paradigm senior crypto analyst Chris Campbell. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s over a 5x explosion in just five years &mdash; and it&rsquo;s still picking up speed.&rdquo;
As you might already know, James Altucher is our resident crypto evangelist at Paradigm. He had the foresight to recommend Bitcoin in 2013 when it was a mere $114. (Checking our screens this morning, it&rsquo;s $107,543.)
James sees the crypto big picture. Complementing his skill set is Chris. Chris gets deep in the weeds &mdash; reading white papers, attending conferences, dissecting which cryptos are trash and which have the potential for life-changing gains.
<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" /> Just to put that 580 million user figure in perspective, Chris says &ldquo;that&rsquo;s 6.8% of the entire world&rsquo;s population now dabbling in cryptocurrency. More than the number of people who hold American Express or use PayPal.&rdquo;
The adoption rate is especially steep in places we once called the &ldquo;Third World.&rdquo; We&rsquo;re talking about folks who leapfrogged the landline era, going straight to inexpensive smartphones. For many of them, crypto is how they preserve purchasing power while governments debase their official fiat currencies.
&ldquo;Nigeria has one of the highest crypto adoption rates in the world,&rdquo; says Chris &mdash; about 40%. And Vietnam, about 30%.
Compare that with about 65 million Americans, or 28% of the adult population.
<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;If adoption continues on its current trajectory, conservative estimates say we&rsquo;ll see 1 billion crypto users by May 14, 2027 &mdash; two decades faster than the internet,&rdquo; says Chris.
Other estimates suggest it could happen as early as next year.
What&rsquo;s more, the growth only accelerates from there: One billion internet users in 2005 became 4.5 billion by 2020.
With crypto, that 4.5 billion threshold could happen even faster: &ldquo;Growth isn&rsquo;t being slowed down by hardware, broadband or mobile rollouts,&rdquo; Chris points out. &ldquo;The infrastructure is already built. An estimated 5.5 billion people have smartphones. Around 70% of them use those phones for payments.
&ldquo;At that point, crypto wouldn&rsquo;t just be a new part of the financial system &mdash; it would be a full-blown parallel financial system with incredible influence over the world.&rdquo;
Which means the present moment abounds with possibility: &ldquo;Just like with the internet, the smartphone or the early days of stock investing, the most asymmetrical gains go to those who act before the crowd even knows there&rsquo;s a line.&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" /> Don&rsquo;t get the wrong idea: The U.S. market matters. It matters enormously &mdash; simply because the United States still dominates traditional finance. The real breakthrough comes when crypto gets the U.S. government&rsquo;s blessing.
And as we&rsquo;ve been saying for several months now, the Trump 47 administration is much more crypto-friendly than any U.S. administration that&rsquo;s come before, including Trump 45.
In particular, Securities and Exchange Commission chair Paul Atkins says Washington must adapt to the crypto landscape. Otherwise, innovators overseas will leave Americans eating their dust.
Which is why James Altucher &mdash; the guy who recommended Bitcoin at $114 &mdash; says this Wednesday will be a crucial day. According to his Wall Street connections, Wednesday is when Atkins and the SEC will unleash a $30 trillion disruption to the crypto space.
Some coins will stumble as a result&hellip; while James says five tiny cryptos are set to soar &mdash; potentially rising 10x in the next 12&ndash;18 months.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454987">Follow this link and James will show you exactly</a> what he expects to be announced on Wednesday &mdash; and how you can position yourself to profit.

<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" />Weak Dollar, Strong 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" /> The U.S. stock market is set to end the first half of the year at an all-time high.
With a few trading hours left in the month of June the S&amp;P 500 sits at 6,182. Its performance during the second quarter of 2025 will be the best since the fourth quarter of 2023.
Perhaps not coincidentally, the U.S. dollar is on track for its worst start to a year, relative to other major currencies, since 1973.
All else being equal, American multinationals benefit when the dollar is weak. As Paradigm&rsquo;s value-investing pro Zach Scheidt explained it to us in 2018, &ldquo;The weak U.S. dollar makes it easier for companies to sell their products overseas for cheaper prices.
&ldquo;You see, a weak U.S. dollar naturally corresponds to stronger other currencies. And if international currencies are stronger, it means consumers overseas can more easily afford the products sold by U.S. companies.
&ldquo;It also helps that when corporations generate profits in euros, yen or British pounds, those profits get reported to investors in dollar terms. And again, profits generated in euros naturally translate to more &lsquo;weak&rsquo; U.S. dollars.&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, you can be forgiven for wondering if the stock market&rsquo;s looking a little &ldquo;toppy&rdquo; right now.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a lot of euphoria out there as we take back those all time-highs,&rdquo; Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner writes his Trading Desk subscribers. &ldquo;This short week would be the perfect time for the market to experience a hiccup or two.&rdquo;
One potential cause for concern is that small-cap stocks are lagging their bigger brethren.
Only last week did the Russell 2000 small-cap index rise back above its 200-day moving average. &ldquo;That looks bullish on the surface,&rdquo; Greg says. &ldquo;Can it survive and continue higher if the broad market runs into trouble? I&rsquo;m not so sure.&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" /> Precious metals got whacked in Sunday night trading, but they&rsquo;re gamely staging a recovery as the first half of the year winds down.
At last check, the bid on gold is up $16 to $3,289. Yes, that&rsquo;s well below the $3,500 peak in April &mdash; but still up smartly from $2,625 at the start of the year. Silver took its sweet time catching up with gold &mdash; but it started the year under $29 and as we write is back within reach of $36. Not bad.
Copper is on track to end the first half of 2025 over $5 a pound, after starting around $4. Speaking of copper, congratulations are in order for Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel readers who bagged an 88% gain on Friday playing options on a major copper-and-gold producer.
Crude starts the week down over 1% at $64.74 &mdash; a considerable drop after starting the year close to $72.
That $107k Bitcoin price we mentioned earlier? A modest gain from roughly $100k at the start of the year. The really big gain came last November and December.
<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" />Trump&rsquo;s AI Power Play
<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" />Looking ahead to the second half of the year, it appears the Trump administration is getting serious about addressing &ldquo;the monster that ate the power grid.&rdquo;
Since early 2024, we&rsquo;ve been <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-monster-that-ate-the-power-grid-ai">pounding the table</a> about AI&rsquo;s enormous demand for electricity &mdash; and the fact the U.S. power grid has no more capacity now than it did in 2011. Last week amid a heat wave, large swaths of the nation were at risk of rolling blackouts.
Now CNBC reports the Trump administration &ldquo;is readying a package of executive actions aimed at boosting energy supply to power the U.S. expansion of artificial intelligence, according to four sources familiar with the planning&hellip;
&ldquo;The moves under consideration include making it easier for power-generating projects to connect to the grid, and providing federal land on which to build the data centers needed to expand AI technology, according to the sources.&rdquo;
When he took office in January the president ordered his administration to come up with an &ldquo;AI Action Plan.&rdquo; CNBC&rsquo;s sources say the report is due by Wednesday, July 23. &ldquo;The White House is considering making July 23 &lsquo;AI Action Day&rsquo; to draw attention to the report and demonstrate its commitment to expanding the industry, two of the sources said.&rdquo;
A few days earlier, the president is set to speak at an AI-and-energy event in Pennsylvania on Tuesday July 15.
Here at Paradigm, we&rsquo;re already on the case identifying the best-in-class investments in this space ahead of these dates &mdash; so watch this space.
Hopefully you took advantage of our unofficial recommendation back <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/blackout-nation">on May 7</a> &mdash; Constellation Energy (CEG) is up nearly 20% since then.
<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" />Tesla&rsquo;s Edge on Detroit
<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 rolled out its &ldquo;robotaxi&rdquo; a few days ago &mdash; and in the process started running Detroit off the road.
The debut of a dozen or so vehicles in Austin, Texas came with some expected glitches &mdash; one of the vehicles briefly veering into oncoming traffic, for example &mdash; but as Tesla sees it, that&rsquo;s essential to the process of perfecting the technology.
Longer term, &ldquo;Tesla is about to have a live, learning network of autonomous vehicles generating data, revenue and operational experience 24/7,&rdquo; says Paradigm tech-investing maven Ray Blanco.
&ldquo;Every mile driven, every edge case encountered, every successful pickup will feed back into Tesla's neural network. This creates a compounding advantage that traditional automakers simply cannot match.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ll come back to the traditional automakers in a moment. Right now, ponder this: &ldquo;Goldman Sachs projects Tesla's robotaxi revenue could reach $115 million by 2027,&rdquo; says Ray, &ldquo;scaling rapidly from there. But that could just be the beginning.
&ldquo;The real disruption comes when Tesla's manufacturing machine turns toward robotaxis. Imagine hundreds of thousands or even millions of Tesla robotaxis offering rides at a fraction of current Uber/Lyft prices.&rdquo;
As for General Motors and Ford, they&rsquo;re &ldquo;caught in a tough spot,&rdquo; Ray goes on. &ldquo;They're spending billions trying to develop autonomous technology while their core business &mdash; selling cars to individual consumers &mdash; faces potential obsolescence.
&ldquo;But for a lot of potential customers, the question remains: Why buy a car when you can summon a robotaxi for 20 or 25 cents per mile?&rdquo;
No, it&rsquo;s not the death of Detroit. But for GM and Ford, &ldquo;their growth prospects have fundamentally changed,&rdquo; Ray says.
&ldquo;Instead of investing billions in traditional vehicle manufacturing, they're now going to be forced to spend on autonomous technology they may never successfully monetize.&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" />A Million Ain&rsquo;t What It Used to Be
<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 <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/not-since-1980#4">&ldquo;everyday millionaires&rdquo;</a> &mdash; a quadrupling in the number of people with a net worth between $1&ndash;5 million since 2000 &mdash; a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;Sixty years ago I bought the farm from my dad and with a factory job I was able to keep my home and the land and now I am a millionaire because the dollar is worth less and getting close to worthless. A paper value of paper money means nothing.
&ldquo;The Carter inflation was worse than the Biden inflation, but every year the dollar is worth less. When I was in the Army I was paid $90 a month.&rdquo;
Dave responds: On further reflection, there&rsquo;s more to this proliferation of millionaires than just the aging population, the falling value of the dollar and the insane ramp-up in home prices.
It&rsquo;s also that this &ldquo;wealth&rdquo; is frighteningly illiquid. The bulk of these paper millionaires&rsquo; wealth is tied up in home equity and tax-advantaged retirement accounts.
Little wonder many of them are living paycheck to paycheck, right?
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

users

In 2005, the internet reached 1 billion users — 36 years after its launch. Cryptocurrency is on track to achieve the same feat in less than 20 years.

One Billion Users

<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" />Atomic IPO
<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 of our major themes of the last 18 months just intersected with one of our major themes of this week.
&ldquo;Holtec International, a key player in the nuclear industry, plans to go public within several months,&rdquo; reports Barron&rsquo;s.
&ldquo;The IPO would almost certainly be the largest nuclear-energy offering in years, giving investors one of the few pure-play ways of buying into the industry&hellip; The company could be worth more than $10 billion.&rdquo;
Since early 2024 we&rsquo;ve been sounding the alarm in these virtual pages about the enormous demands that AI is making on the U.S. power grid &mdash; a grid whose capacity hasn&rsquo;t grown for over a decade.
To illustrate, Elon Musk posted the following just this morning&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2kqsUPKCAoH9nCkZCx23bf/41fbe12f3b3917a1a136c53464e9e42b/ElonTweet.png" alt="elon tweet" width="540px" />
Result: During a heat wave this week, large swaths of the eastern and central United States were at risk of rolling blackouts. Fortunately, it didn&rsquo;t come to that. This time.
Amid that backdrop, Holtec is in the process of restarting a shuttered nuclear power plant &mdash; a first for the industry. The Palisades plant in southwest Michigan was mothballed in 2022.
Holtec also plans to beef up Palisades&rsquo; capacity with the installation of two SMRs or &ldquo;small modular reactors&rdquo; at the site. (SMRs are still a fledgling technology; none has yet been deployed in the United States.)
If all goes according to plan, Palisades should be up and running again this fall &mdash; a few months before Holtec starts trading publicly in early 2026.
<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 been a good year for IPOs in the United States. With an asterisk.
As of Wednesday, Bloomberg says the share price of companies that started trading in 2025 are up by a weighted average of 53%.
But hold on: That number&rsquo;s been pulled artificially higher by the blockbuster performance of crypto phenom Circle Internet Group &mdash; spotlighted in this space yesterday &mdash; as well as the cloud computing firm CoreWeave.
And even for the rare exceptions that deliver blockbuster performance, the problem remains for retail investors: The biggest gains, by far, are had before a company goes public.
Unfortunately those gains are limited to investors with deep pockets.
That&rsquo;s a situation that Paradigm&rsquo;s venture capital veteran James Altucher has been out to remedy this week. His contacts have clued him into a rare loophole in the IPO market &mdash; affording everyday folks like you the chance to buy into an up-and-coming quantum computing firm before it goes public.
As you might already know, quantum computing stocks have been on a hot streak at times this year &mdash; leaping as high as 2,798% in just months.
But this isn&rsquo;t just any quantum-computing company. &ldquo;I have reason to believe that every business on Earth will need this company&rsquo;s products,&rdquo; James tells us &mdash; &ldquo;real soon.&rdquo;
Readers of James&rsquo; Microcap Millionaire service already know he plans to buy in next week &mdash; and he&rsquo;s giving them the chance to do so first.

If you&rsquo;re not among them, and we&rsquo;ve piqued your curiosity, time is running out: <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454614">You&rsquo;ll want to click here and check out James&rsquo; presentation</a> before the market closes at 4:00 p.m. EDT.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454614">Give it a look now</a>. You can always come back to the rest of our 5 Bullets later.

<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" />Inflation: Can&rsquo;t Catch a Break
<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" /> Uh-oh &mdash; another sign that inflation is moving in the wrong direction.
Earlier this month, the consumer price index from the Labor Department showed that the annual inflation rate inched up from 2.4% to 2.5%.
This morning the Commerce Department delivered &ldquo;core PCE,&rdquo; which is the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s preferred inflation gauge. This too inched up &mdash; from 2.6% to 2.7% &mdash; confounding the expectations of Wall Street economists.
Zooming out, it&rsquo;s apparent that over the last year this particular inflation measure has bottomed out in a range between 2.6&ndash;3.0%. That&rsquo;s nowhere near the Fed&rsquo;s desired 2% inflation target.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4RhKudzwTEUjb56oFNktBl/84306ba96ff951365927ada3584aeae8/6.27_5Bullets_Chart_2.png" alt="chart" width="540px" />
If you&rsquo;ve been with us for the last year or two, this should be no surprise: More than once, we&rsquo;ve pointed to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/declare-your-independence-from-inflation">powerful evidence</a> that once inflation sails beyond 5% &mdash; as it did in 2022 &mdash; it typically takes a decade to return to &ldquo;normal&rdquo; 2% inflation.
How will this number affect the Fed&rsquo;s path on interest rates? Looking at the futures markets this morning, traders are pricing in a 79% probability the Fed will stand pat at its next meeting on July 30 &mdash; keeping the fed funds rate at 4.5%.
If true, the first rate cut of 2025 won&rsquo;t come until mid-September.
<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" /> No doubt this development is a disappointment for Mr. Market &mdash; but so far he&rsquo;s taking it in stride today.
At last check, the S&amp;P is up half a percent on the day at 6,174. If that holds by day&rsquo;s end, the index will have surpassed its previous record close four months ago.
The Nasdaq is likewise up about a half percent, the Dow about three-quarters of a percent.
Among the other cross-currents that have traders chattering today &mdash; the possibility Donald Trump will name a replacement for Fed chair Jerome Powell this fall, even though Powell&rsquo;s term isn&rsquo;t up till May 15 next year.
In addition, U.S. and Chinese negotiators have supposedly come to terms on a &ldquo;trade framework&rdquo; &mdash; although the details from both sides are, to say the least, vague.
<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;Mr. Slammy&rdquo; showed up for the precious metals today. The shadowy forces that depress prices every now and then have crushed gold by nearly 2%, the bid down to $3,264.
In addition, silver is losing its grip on the $36 level. And platinum, which hit its highest level since 2014 yesterday, is down 5.5% to $1,341.
Crude is up about 1% as its bounce from oversold levels earlier this week continues. At last check a barrel of West Texas Intermediate was fetching $65.87.
Bitcoin is stuck in the mud at $106,585.
<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" />Bonds: An Orderly Race for the Exits
<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 speedy whoosh in the bond market is in the rear-view. Now comes the slow-motion sell-off.
In April, amid the market panic surrounding Donald Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; announcement, a funny thing happened: While stocks were selling off hard, so were bonds.
Usually at times like that, scared money floods into bonds as a safe haven. But not then: Bond prices fell hard and yields rose sharply. The yield on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note soared past 4.5%.
It was this panic in the bond market that prompted the president to announce a 90-day pause on his tariff regime. (Those 90 days are up on July 8, by the way.)
The mainstream was quick to chalk up the bond market panic to a lack of confidence in Trump&rsquo;s tariff policy. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-real-reason-for-the-tariff-pause">But as we said at the time</a>, there was more to it than that.
There was Joe Biden&rsquo;s radical step of freezing the U.S. Treasuries held by Russia&rsquo;s central bank. And there was the lingering unease with Uncle Sam&rsquo;s debt burden &mdash; already steep going into the 2020 pandemic, and growing at an even faster pace since.
The initial bond-market panic in April has eased. The yield on a 10-year Treasury today is 4.27%.
<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 that doesn&rsquo;t mean confidence in Uncle Sam&rsquo;s debt has returned: &ldquo;Investors are fleeing long-term U.S. bond funds at the swiftest rate since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago,&rdquo; says the Financial Times &mdash; &ldquo;as America&rsquo;s soaring debt load tarnishes the appeal of one of the world&rsquo;s most important markets.&rdquo;
From early 2022 through early 2025, long-term bond funds took in about $20 billion every quarter. But during the second quarter of this year, $11 billion has fled these funds.
It&rsquo;s not a panic &mdash; more like an orderly race for the exits.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1RadhujsTDNE0z8tsiD4C6/9a604721db33b2819aad155f7bced4cd/6.27_5Bullets_Chart.png" alt="chart 2" width="540px" />
Bond funds are only a slender portion of the enormous bond market &mdash; but they&rsquo;re a valuable snapshot of the market vibe.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a symptom of a much bigger problem,&rdquo; DoubleLine Capital&rsquo;s Bill Campbell tells the FT. &ldquo;There is a lot of concern domestically and from the foreign investor community about owning the long end of the Treasury curve.&rdquo;
Those jitters have only grown as the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill&rdquo; takes shape in Washington. (The Senate might vote on its version of the bill as early as today.) Now that the promised budget savings from DOGE have turned out to be a bust, the bill is likely to accelerate the national debt&rsquo;s growth trajectory.
The Trump administration insists its policies will in fact slow the growth of Uncle Sam&rsquo;s debt load &mdash; but we&rsquo;ve heard those promises from Republican administrations before and they never pan out. (That&rsquo;s not to let spendthrift Democrats off the hook, to be clear.)
The stakes couldn&rsquo;t be higher: Shrinking demand for U.S. Treasury debt translates over time to higher interest rates &mdash; which makes the government&rsquo;s debt burden only worse.
Imagine taking on new credit card debt just to keep up the minimum payments on your existing debt.
That&rsquo;s bad for a household. It&rsquo;s way worse for a country&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" />Comic Relief (and Some Myth-Busting)
<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 whatever reason, this tweet from last year is making the rounds now &mdash; and people are taking it seriously.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4kuFKW9yYrGc8xSvbqXBdd/14e739608d81f7b07ee9eb7d307e2748/TheClimate.png" alt="the climate" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s gonna tell him?&rdquo; says a post this week on the alt-right social media platform Gab. And there&rsquo;s more where that came from.
Looking at the account of the individual behind this tweet, it&rsquo;s definitely satire. The account is run by a Canadian who routinely skewers the climate-obsessed control freaks and power trippers in his country and elsewhere. Now you know&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" />Politics and Investing
<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 heard from another reader after our inquiry on Wednesday: Have you ever let your politics drive your investing decisions? 
&ldquo;Thanks to turmoil/volatility created by the current administration the &lsquo;playtime&rsquo; part of my portfolio has increased 5x, mostly via put options. About to pay off the five-year car loan I signed up for last December. Not happy but making bank.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Sounds like it. Interesting contrast with the fellow yesterday who sold California municipal bonds and bought shares of the Big Oil firm Chevron. He&rsquo;s happy too.
Probably not the last we&rsquo;re going to hear of this theme &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/its-a-rigged-game#4">the growing partisan divide</a> reflected in attitudes toward future stock market performance. It&rsquo;s been interesting exploring it 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" /> All of which brings up a paradox for our firm and many of our readers.
It&rsquo;s safe to say, based on our various marketing campaigns of the last several years, that the overwhelming majority of Jim Rickards&rsquo; readers lean Republican.
Which means, if the Gallup polling data is accurate, that they&rsquo;re by and large optimistic about the stock market&rsquo;s near-term prospects because a Republican occupies the White House.
Of course, Jim is not optimistic about the stock market&rsquo;s near-term prospects.
Yes, he&rsquo;s keen on Individual names tied to <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454619">his &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; thesis</a>. But the broad market dominated by the Magnificent 7? Not so much.
So if you&rsquo;re having trouble squaring that circle, let me try to help.
Jim spent a long time on Wall Street &mdash; long enough to be completely jaded by Wall Street firms&rsquo; relentless pressure on their clients to buy stocks. That&rsquo;s just how he rolls.
Even before he joined our firm, I remember sitting in a Vancouver hotel conference room in 2013 watching him describe his preferred asset mix &mdash; gold, cash, land, fine art, private equity.
Notice that stocks are absent. Unlike most entry-level newsletters, there&rsquo;s no portfolio on the back page of Strategic Intelligence, and there never has been.
Jim is always on alert for something to go wrong in the stock market because it is inextricably linked to the banks and the financial system. You would be too if you had a front-row seat to the near-calamity that was the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. It&rsquo;s a lived experience and a worldview that commands a loyal following.
Do we have other experts in our stable who disagree with Jim&rsquo;s outlook? Absolutely.
We don&rsquo;t enforce a &ldquo;company line&rdquo; around here. True to our name, we ask only that our editors bring a rigorous paradigm to their work &mdash; a model of how the markets and the economy operate.
They don&rsquo;t have to agree &mdash; as anyone who&rsquo;s witnessed one of our rollicking Whiskey Bar panel discussions can attest &mdash; but they have to have a systematic outlook and the ability to defend it.
That&rsquo;s how they can build a following &mdash; and we can maintain a sustainable business.
It&rsquo;s not easy &mdash; but with informed and engaged readers, it&rsquo;s more than worthwhile!
Have a good weekend,
<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

dap-img3-robotic-arm-atomic-energy-square-200-shutterstock 2278571463

One of our long-standing themes (the demands of AI on the power grid) is intersecting with one of our themes this week (the resurgence of IPOs).

Atomic IPO

<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" />Circle Gets the Square
<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" />Circle Internet Group (CRCL), the company behind the USDC stablecoin, just pulled off one of the most explosive IPOs in decades. 
On June 5, 2025, the company priced its IPO at $31 per share, then watched as shares more than doubled on their first day of trading, soaring as high as $103.75 at one point before closing at $83.23 &mdash; a 168% pop above the IPO price
The next day, the stock jumped another 30% to close at $107.70, and demand hasn&rsquo;t let up since. At latest check, shares have surged over 600% from the IPO price. A meteoric rise by any metric.
<ul>
<li>Jay Ritter, a leading IPO expert, confirmed that Circle&rsquo;s two-day moonshot was the biggest for any major IPO since 1980. That&rsquo;s the kind of windfall most retail investors only dream about.</li>
</ul>
It&rsquo;s not every day a company comes out of nowhere and shakes up Wall Street and crypto in one fell swoop. But that&rsquo;s exactly what Circle did &mdash; and if you blinked, you might have missed it.
What&rsquo;s fueling this frenzy? Circle is at the center of the fast-growing stablecoin market, with USDC now the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, pegged at about $61 billion.
<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" />Circle now stands alongside Coinbase as one of the few pure-play crypto firms to list in the U.S., and its success is seen as a bellwether for the entire sector.
The IPO itself was a blockbuster. Clearly, the appetite for digital assets and fintech is back&mdash;and it&rsquo;s stronger than ever. Circle&rsquo;s vision, according to CEO Jeremy Allaire, is to &ldquo;create a new financial infrastructure based on the internet that could fundamentally transform the use of money.&rdquo;
But this isn&rsquo;t just about Circle. The company&rsquo;s success is a signal. According to Lynn Martin, president of the NYSE Group: &ldquo;I see the Circle IPO as a bellwether for the IPO markets this year, not just for crypto listings.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Which brings us to an important point: If you&rsquo;re a regular investor, you probably missed out on the &ldquo;ground floor&rdquo; opportunity. The real winners in this story were the insiders and big-money investors who got in before the IPO.
By the time shares hit the open market, the price had already rocketed. That&rsquo;s the reality of the IPO game &mdash; the biggest gains are reserved for those who get in early, before the company goes public.
So what&rsquo;s next? Circle&rsquo;s story is a reminder that the best opportunities often come before the headlines. If you want a shot at the next big thing, you need to be in the know &mdash; and sometimes, you need to act before the rest of the world catches on.

Now, Paradigm&rsquo;s venture capital veteran James Altucher says this week you have a chance to invest in the next &ldquo;SUPER IPO&rdquo;&hellip; Before shares trade on a major U.S. exchange.
James has identified a company that is developing one of the most mission-critical products since the birth of the internet.
As we speak, it&rsquo;s preparing to go public on America&rsquo;s premier tech exchange. And unlike most &ldquo;IPO&rdquo; setups&hellip;
You can buy shares today BEFORE the company officially goes public, maybe in a matter of days. And you don&rsquo;t need to have millions of dollars or any special connections.
There is a secret backdoor in the IPO market &mdash; and through it, you can invest in this company now while it&rsquo;s trading for just $3 per share.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454281">James explains everything here.</a> But he highly recommends you take action today &mdash; before the backdoor on this offer closes Friday at 4 p.m. ET.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454281">Click here</a> to see why James is so bullish on this company.

<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 Market Memo: &ldquo;Headlines Fade&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;If you turn on the mainstream media right now, the Israel/Iran conflict is dominating the headlines,&rdquo; says editor Davis Wilson at our sister e-letter The Million MIssion. 
For instance, when the story first hit the news cycle: &ldquo;Oil prices spiked. The S&amp;P 500 pulled back. And naturally, people [asked]: Is this the start of something bigger? 
&ldquo;However, we&rsquo;ve seen this playbook before,&rdquo; Davis notes. &ldquo;It starts with breaking news: a drone strike, a missile launch, a shocking assassination. Oil rallies. Defense stocks surge. Broader equities pull back as headlines scream about escalation and global instability.
&ldquo;But zoom out,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and the pattern becomes clear: These dips have consistently turned into buying opportunities.&rdquo; Here&rsquo;s a sketch of a few major geopolitical events from the past decade&hellip;
<ol>
<li>Russia invades Crimea (2014): &ldquo;Russia&rsquo;s annexation of Crimea in early 2014 was met with global outrage,&rdquo; David notes. &ldquo;Sanctions were imposed. Markets dipped. But the S&amp;P 500? It was down briefly in March, then went on to finish the year up over 11%. Investors who bought the fear were rewarded within months&rdquo;</li>
<li>U.S.-China trade war (2018&ndash;2019): &ldquo;While not a kinetic conflict, the trade war was a geopolitical standoff with real economic consequences. Tariffs were slapped on billions in goods. Markets dropped several times on tweets alone. But the trade war didn&rsquo;t break the bull market,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;it merely created volatility within a broader uptrend&rdquo;</li>
<li>Russia invades Ukraine (2022): &ldquo;This was the biggest geopolitical shock since 9/11,&rdquo; Davis emphasizes. &ldquo;Markets initially dropped &mdash; especially European and global names. But by the end of 2022, U.S. stocks had largely priced in the new reality. Energy prices spiked and then fell back. Defense stocks rallied. The S&amp;P 500 found its footing and moved on.&rdquo;</li>
</ol>
Not to mention multiple &ldquo;periods of heightened conflict in the Middle East [often] cause brief market wobbles, especially in energy,&rdquo; says Davis. &ldquo;But they rarely create lasting damage to U.S. equities. Unless oil prices remain elevated for months (which is rare), these are noise in the long run.
<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;So why does the market keep bouncing back?&rdquo; Davis posits: &ldquo;Three reasons&hellip;
&ldquo;Markets price in worst-case scenarios quickly,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;When geopolitical news breaks, traders often assume escalation. But once the situation de-escalates (or fails to spiral) stocks rebound as uncertainty fades.&rdquo;
Next: &ldquo;U.S. companies are resilient. Most geopolitical issues don&rsquo;t directly affect corporate earnings. Even during oil shocks or military conflicts, consumer spending and business operations often go untouched.&rdquo;
Last: &ldquo;&lsquo;Buy the dip&rsquo; is embedded. Investors have been rewarded for 15 years for stepping in on weakness.&rdquo;
Davis&rsquo; key takeaway: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t panic. Don&rsquo;t chase headlines. Watch sentiment &mdash; not news anchors. If geopolitical tensions rise and stocks dip sharply, that&rsquo;s often the setup for a sharp rebound.
&ldquo;Avoid piling into defense stocks after they&rsquo;ve run. Instead, buy what&rsquo;s unfairly punished: the high-quality stocks I highlight &mdash; Nvidia, Meta, Uber &mdash; not because they&rsquo;re immune to news cycles, but because they rebound the fastest when the fear fades.
&ldquo;Remember: Fear drives short-term volatility. Fundamentals drive long-term gains.&rdquo; Davis advises: &ldquo;Stay calm. Stay patient. And when others panic &mdash; get ready to strike.&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" /> Taking a look at my screen this afternoon: The Big Board is up 0.80% to 43,320. As for the other two major U.S. indexes, the techie Nasdaq is up 0.70% to 20,110 while the S&amp;P 500 is up 0.65% to 6,130.
Turning to the commodities complex, the price of oil is up 1.50% to $65.90 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metal? Gold&rsquo;s barely hanging out in the green territory: up 0.10% to $3,346.40 per ounce. But silver&rsquo;s up 1.60% to $36.58.
The crypto market&rsquo;s hit a speedbump today: Bitcoin&rsquo;s down 0.40% to $107,320, but Ethereum&rsquo;s taking a breather at $2,430.
<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" />DeFi: Code, Crypto and Clarity
<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 the 1990s, the U.S. government classified encryption &mdash; or &lsquo;crypto&rsquo; &mdash; as a weapon,&rdquo; says James Altucher&rsquo;s chief analyst Chris Campbell. &ldquo;If you were writing strong encryption code &mdash; PGP, RSA &mdash; you were, legally speaking, an arms dealer,&rdquo; he adds.
&ldquo;It was America&rsquo;s first crypto war,&rdquo; says Chris. &ldquo;At its core was one question: Is code speech? The people building encryption said yes. The government said no.
&ldquo;The turning point was the Bernstein v. U.S. Department of Justice case (1995&ndash;1999) &mdash; a landmark legal battle that established code as protected speech under the First Amendment.
&ldquo;Fast-forward 30 years and we saw crypto wars 2.0,&rdquo; Chris notes. DeFi platforms were investigated, and Coinbase, for example, was threatened regularly. Even self-custody was under attack.
&ldquo;That was the Gary Gensler era,&rdquo; says Chris. &ldquo;Gensler didn&rsquo;t believe in clarity. He believed in ambiguity. Not because he was stupid. But because ambiguity is a tool. If nobody knows the rules, everyone&rsquo;s guilty.&rdquo;
But that all changed this month&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" /> The SEC&rsquo;s &ldquo;DeFi and the American Spirit&rdquo; roundtable was &ldquo;the most important crypto discussion to ever take place in America,&rdquo; Chris emphasizes.
&ldquo;SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said it plainly: &lsquo;DeFi is as American as apple pie.&rsquo; He said self-custody is a right. He said code is speech. He said your constitutional freedoms don&rsquo;t vanish when you log on to the internet.
&ldquo;He even floated an &lsquo;innovation exemption,&rsquo;&rdquo; Chris continues, &ldquo;a fast-track for blockchain projects that play by some basic rules but don&rsquo;t want to die in paperwork hell.
&ldquo;For the first time publicly, the SEC acknowledged:
<ul>
<li>Bitcoin mining is not a security (already assumed, now confirmed)</li>
<li>Staking is also not a security, including staking-as-a-service.</li>
</ul>
[FYI: Staking is the process of locking up cryptocurrency in a blockchain network to help validate transactions and earn rewards, while staking-as-a-service allows users to delegate their tokens to a third party that handles the technical requirements of staking on their behalf.]
&ldquo;This clears a major cloud over Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and basically all major blockchains,&rdquo; Chris says.
&ldquo;Crypto is finally on track to get what we&rsquo;ve needed all along: clarity. Staking clarity. Token clarity. Self-custody protection. And actual, written laws &mdash; so builders can stop looking over their shoulder and start shipping code.
&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t bullish. It&rsquo;s nuclear&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;But how do we find the real hidden gems? Here&rsquo;s one strategy James and I are using right now,&rdquo; says Chris.
&ldquo;First, don&rsquo;t follow the noise. Follow the fees,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The real plays right now aren&rsquo;t the ones trending on Twitter &mdash; they&rsquo;re the ones printing cash in the background.
&ldquo;They&rsquo;re small, often overlooked, but they&rsquo;re raking in millions in protocol revenue from trading, lending, staking and stablecoin systems.
&ldquo;And the kicker: A lot of that revenue is flowing directly back to token holders. Real yield. Not inflation.
<a id="4"></a>
&ldquo;To find the real under-the-radar plays,&rdquo; Chris concludes, &ldquo;look for rising usage, sticky users and weird new niches &mdash; like tokenized yield or DeFi-native forex &mdash; that the big names haven&rsquo;t fully claimed.
&ldquo;If you can catch these before they go mainstream, you&rsquo;re not just early. You&rsquo;re ahead of the curve, while everyone else is still trying to figure out what&rsquo;s happening.&rdquo;
<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" />Why Millionaires Feel &ldquo;Meh&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" /> Forget caviar and Champagne &mdash; millionaires are living downright ho-hum lives these days. 
The world now boasts about 52 million &ldquo;everyday&rdquo; millionaires, folks with between $1&ndash;5 million in net worth, according to a recent UBS report. That&rsquo;s four times more than in 2000. (Adjusting for inflation? The number of millionaires has more than doubled.)
In the U.S. alone, new millionaires are being minted at a rate of about 1,000 per day. The country is home to nearly 24 million millionaires, accounting for about 40% of the global total &mdash; four times more than runner-up China.
But here&rsquo;s the twist: Most of these folks don&rsquo;t feel rich. &ldquo;Millionaires are no longer Monopoly caricatures,&rdquo; says Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s shifted to encompass a very large portion of the population.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4BdwhuHRDNgdeTJqgZ2LQV/ea4ff445ac961d3faa5c02a9e6832a99/hotdogs.png" alt="hotdog" width="540px" />
Much of this wealth surge comes from soaring home prices and an aging population. A record 39.3% of Americans own their homes outright, and over half of these are at retirement age.
Boomers, in particular, have benefited from tax perks like the mortgage-interest deduction and tax-free 401(k) contributions.
Yet many U.S. millionaires are surprised to learn about their status. &ldquo;I know we&rsquo;re technically &lsquo;millionaires&rsquo; with our home equity but it isn&rsquo;t really helpful for monthly expenses,&rdquo; says Alisha Ard, a stay-at-home mom in Ventura County, California, where the median home costs more than $800,000.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s honestly hard to describe how incredibly pedestrian and normal our lives are,&rdquo; says Glen Czaplewski of Denver, echoing a common sentiment among this new class of millionaires.
&ldquo;Everyone is a lot better off,&rdquo; Donovan notes, &ldquo;but relatively speaking, people don&rsquo;t necessarily feel that.&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: Speaking of &ldquo;Meh&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;When Trump won the election, I sold California muni bonds, put 90% into &lsquo;drill baby drill&rsquo; Chevron and 10% into Barrick Gold; dividend reinvest on both. Happy, happy,&rdquo; responds an optimistic contributor to our question yesterday: To what extent do you let politics drive your investing decisions?
Emily: Thank you to the one reader who responded&hellip; Where is everyone? Enjoying an afternoon siesta? Summer vacay?
Nonetheless, our reader&rsquo;s response reflects the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/its-a-rigged-game#4">partisan gap</a> in market optimism we mentioned yesterday &mdash; now the widest gap ever recorded, with Republicans far more bullish than Democrats
As Dave mentioned, investors are increasingly letting politics guide their choices. But beware, write Neil Howe and associate Christian Ford at the Demography Unplugged Substack page&hellip;
&ldquo;According to Bespoke Investment Group, $1,000 invested only during Republican presidencies since 1953 would be worth about $29,000 today,&rdquo; versus $60,000 if invested only during Democratic presidencies &mdash; but $1,000 left invested continuously would have grown to $1.9 million.
This suggests that a disciplined, long-term strategy beats betting on political outcomes.
That seems to be the prevailing sentiment in these 5 Bullets&hellip; Until next time, take care!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

1980

Circle Internet Group (CRCL), the company behind the USDC stablecoin, just pulled off one of the most explosive IPOs in decades. 


Not Since 1980… 

Poker

The problem we’ve lamented in these daily missives for years: The best time to get into an IPO… is before it goes public.

It’s a Rigged Game

Minerals0624

A recent Senate proposal is a small part of the Trump administration’s plan to tap into the mineral wealth on federal lands, valued at up to $150 trillion.