<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" />Everything&rsquo;s Fine (Part 1)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On the occasion of President Vladimir Putin&rsquo;s election to a fifth term in office, President Xi Jinping welcomed his &ldquo;good neighbor, friend and partner&rdquo; to Beijing this week. 
&ldquo;[They] pledged to intensify cooperation against U.S. &lsquo;containment&rsquo; of their countries, as they warned of growing nuclear tensions between rival powers,&rdquo; Bloomberg says.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/tXU2pThWHGOn2OxcBGksw/70a69aa166e9093eeff7b9cb1c2d4401/Clandestine-tweet.png" alt="Clandestine tweet" width="540px" />

If you ask the question, you already know the answer&hellip;
&ldquo;In a joint declaration after more than two hours of talks in Beijing on Thursday,&rdquo; Bloomberg continues, &ldquo;Putin and Xi accused the U.S. of planning to station missile systems around the world that &lsquo;pose a direct threat to the security of Russia and China.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Then there&rsquo;s this de-dollarization nugget&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;Putin noted that 90% of trade between Russia and China was settled in yuan and rubles,&rdquo; Bloomberg reports. &ldquo;This means we can say our trade and investments are effectively safeguarded from the influence of third countries,&rdquo; Putin jabbed.
As for trade between the two countries: &ldquo;Driven by Russian oil and gas sales and purchases of electronics, industrial equipment and cars, Moscow&rsquo;s trade with China hit a record $240 billion in 2023.&rdquo; Or its equivalent in yuan and rubles&hellip; 
&ldquo;Despite that, China&rsquo;s exports to Russia have dipped for the past two months,&rdquo; says Bloomberg. &ldquo;The U.S. has warned China over its trade with Russia, threatening to sanction banks that prop up the Kremlin&rsquo;s war machine.&rdquo;
In case, however, you need further proof that U.S. sanctions are misfiring: &ldquo;Putin added that Moscow and Beijing had agreed to step up banking ties and increase the use of national payment systems.
&ldquo;Details of those agreements and the ones signed before cameras were not released.&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" /> Not that our firm hasn&rsquo;t warned about the dollar&rsquo;s reserve-currency demise for years&hellip; As we&rsquo;ve said on more than one occasion: It&rsquo;s a process, not an event. 
For further edification, we include something Dave wrote last year: &ldquo;While the trend has been taking shape for nearly a decade, Washington crossed a Rubicon in its weaponization of the dollar [after] Russia invaded Ukraine &mdash; freezing all of the Russian central bank&rsquo;s dollar-denominated assets.
&ldquo;Now the blowback is inevitable &mdash; and irreversible.&rdquo;
And today? Imagine if the U.S. and its Western allies cross another Rubicon: <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/an-election-year-financial-crisis">liquidating aforementioned Russian assets</a> to fund Ukraine&rsquo;s war effort. An idea Jim Rickards calls &ldquo;the dumbest ever.&rdquo;
In light of which, Russian economist Alex Isakov says: &ldquo;Putin will continue to press his ultimate goal of seeing China fully replace Europe in terms of energy trade, technology transfer and financial markets.
&ldquo;A &lsquo;Crussia&rsquo; plan would take years and billions of dollars to execute,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;but may be Russia&rsquo;s only rational option.&rdquo; We only hope it&rsquo;s not Russia&rsquo;s nuclear option.
<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" />Everything&rsquo;s Fine (Part 2)
<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;Investors are striking gold in most every market,&rdquo; The Wall Street Journal trumpets today.
&ldquo;The Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 40,000 mark for the first time Thursday amid an almost picture-perfect investing environment featuring resilient corporate profits, low unemployment and easing inflation.&rdquo;
Wait, what?
&ldquo;Although many Americans have a negative view of the overall economy, partly due to persistently high prices, they are more upbeat when it comes to stocks,&rdquo; WSJ says.
Not to mention that two of the top three best-performing assets are commodities, but OK&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1yBesG8fuyTgLwMHhYeBs3/7ec0d1985979b801b73e80730c48db13/AssetValue.png" alt="asset value" width="540px" />

Source: FactSet, WSJ
More on copper and gold in a moment. But taking a look at stocks, the S&amp;P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq are both hanging out in the red today, down 0.05% and 0.10% respectively. The Big Board, on the other hand, has gained about 0.10% market cap &mdash; still 85 points under Thursday&rsquo;s record-breaking 40,000.
Back on the commodities beat, crude is up 0.35% to $79.52 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate. Meanwhile, metals &mdash; across the board &mdash; are catching a bid.
<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 feels like it was just <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/caveat-meme-tor#2">yesterday</a>: &ldquo;Most Registered Investment Advisors (RIAs) still don&rsquo;t have much of an allocation to gold,&rdquo; said Paradigm&rsquo;s income-investing ace, Zach Scheidt.
Here&rsquo;s a comparison to Bitcoin&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7CGR3rvdymm1umHCzSfGxt/017f124183d0f3b406e22e3ecc84e45b/watcher-tweet.png" alt="watcher tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;So those professional investors continue to be a big source of demand as their high-net-worth customers request more exposure [to gold] from their advisors,&rdquo; Zach repeats. All to say, that&rsquo;s a lot of runway for gold&rsquo;s take-off.
Today? 
<ul>
<li>Gold: Up 1.20% to $2,413.80 per ounce</li>
<li>Silver: Up 3.75%, a penny under $31</li>
<li>Copper: Up 3.25%, over $5</li>
<li>Platinum: Up 1.70%</li>
<li>Palladium: Up 1.25%</li>
</ul>
Crypto is getting some love too. Bitcoin is up 2.6%, just a few dollars away from $67,000. And Ethereum is really rallying: up 5% to $3,100.
For more on Ethereum&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 DOJ busted two MIT graduates for pulling off a $25 million cryptocurrency heist. 
The Justice Department alleges it&rsquo;s the first crime of its kind: Brothers Anton and James Peraire-Bueno, who studied mathematics and computer science, took months to plan what they called &ldquo;The Exploit.&rdquo;
Namely: &ldquo;[The brothers] were able to successfully exploit a vulnerability in the MEV-boost software used by the Ethereum blockchain to validate transactions before adding them,&rdquo; says GovTech.
&ldquo;This allowed them to redirect the flow of the cryptocurrency on pending transactions, sending it to them instead of the intended recipient.&rdquo;
In a matter of 12 seconds.
When an Ethereum representative confronted the brothers, they tried to cover their tracks via money laundering and wire fraud.
If convicted, the Peraire-Bueno brothers face sentences up to 20 years. No bueno. 
Of course, crime doesn&rsquo;t pay, but&hellip; do you think the feds will <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_Me_If_You_Can#Plot">Frank Abagnale</a> their asses? As our colleague Sean Ring puts it: &ldquo;Ethereum should immediately hire them and call the theft a sign-on bonus.&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" />Boeing&rsquo;s in the (Alphabet) Soup
<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. prosecutors have determined that Boeing Co. (BA) violated the terms of a 2021 agreement related to the two 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people.
The agreement, which included a $2.5 billion settlement, required Boeing to design and enforce a compliance program to prevent future violations of fraud laws.
The DOJ, however, believes Boeing breached its obligations under the agreement and will attempt to prove that these violations were committed knowingly.
The Justice Department&rsquo;s decision comes after a recent incident involving an Alaska Airlines 737-9, where investigators found missing bolts in the aircraft's door, suggesting manufacturing issues at Boeing and its supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. (SPR).
Boeing has until June 13 to respond to the DOJ's decision.
Separately, Boeing agreed to pay $200 million to settle charges with the SEC related to misleading claims about the crashes. The SEC is also investigating whether Boeing misled investors after the Alaska Airlines incident.
Also? The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has set a deadline for Boeing to address systemic quality control issues in its commercial aircraft manufacturing operations and is looking into falsified production records for the 787 Dreamliner.
DOJ&hellip; SEC&hellip; FAA.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/clowns-to-the-left-monkeys-to-the-right-boeing">BA?</a> OMG!
<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" />Gimme Space!
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Elon Musk&rsquo;s Starlink IPO is making serious progress,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s science-and-technology expert, Ray Blanco.
&ldquo;In 2019, Starlink launched its first 60 satellites into orbit,&rdquo; he notes. &ldquo;The company has since increased that number by 100x with nearly 6,000 satellites today.&rdquo;
When complete, Starlink is expected to consist of a constellation of 40,000 satellites delivering high-bandwidth, low-latency internet access anywhere on Earth.
Ray adds: &ldquo;Elon Musk has said that he&rsquo;ll take Starlink public once they can predict its cash flow reasonably well. And it looks like he&rsquo;s finally approaching that goal.
&ldquo;Last year, Starlink achieved breakeven cash flow. Based on the new revenue projections for 2024&rdquo; &mdash; $6.6 billion, according to research firm Quilty Space &mdash; &ldquo;it's now expected to achieve positive free cash flow this year.
&ldquo;This will be a major milestone for the inevitable IPO,&rdquo; Ray says. &ldquo;Whenever the company goes public, early investors stand to win big.&rdquo;
You don&rsquo;t have to wait until Starlink&rsquo;s IPO to make moves. Ray&rsquo;s already identified a Starlink-partner stock you can buy today. Check out his <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2323226">FREE report:</a> &ldquo;The $50 &lsquo;Hidden Backdoor&rsquo; to Elon&rsquo;s Next Billion-Dollar IPO.&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" />Copper Thieves Target Tesla
<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;More than half a dozen Tesla Supercharger nozzles were cut and stolen at a charging station outside the Vallejo Target this past weekend,&rdquo; reports a Bay Area ABC affiliate.
&ldquo;Nine charger nozzles were cut and stolen, nine others untouched, along with generators that were untouched.&rdquo;
TikToker Josua Beckler says: &ldquo;There is a ton of copper in those cables and seeing that they had removed the cables and taken them with them as well as the junction block that had a ton of copper in it, then it's pretty obvious that they went to go scrap it.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3jY8eb1JDsEQ7674LrogpH/5f9c8a408259765392fa95d8c1d3f341/Tesla1.png" alt="tesla" width="540px" />

Courtesy: ABC7, X
Here&rsquo;s a closeup of vandals&rsquo; handiwork, this time in Houston&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3w7algnAelxuuxaDXDyBAM/c73d5bf80f319f1bcc524d8907a537b8/Tesla2.png" alt="tesla" width="540px" />

Courtesy: KPRC 2 Click2Houston on YouTube, Autoevolution (Edited)
&ldquo;One of the main reasons electric vehicle stations might be targeted is due to their locations,&rdquo; says an article at InsideEVs. &ldquo;Chargers are typically installed in areas with convenient public access. These areas have a lot of foot traffic during the day but are practically deserted at night.&rdquo;
South of the Bay Area, the city of Fresno has also been targeted by vandals: 50 of the city&rsquo;s 88 charging stations have been mangled.
&ldquo;So by the end of the summer, they will be installing new custom cabinets around each of the units,&rdquo; the article notes. &ldquo;These cabinets can be secured during off-peak hours.
&ldquo;The purchase and installation of 88 custom cabinets will cost around $176,000. Whereas the raw materials from all 88 stations combined would probably be worth only $500-$750.&rdquo;
Hmm&hellip; Desperate times.
On that grim note, touch grass this weekend, as the kids say.
Take care.
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 bullets hero Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) attends the welcoming ceremony

shutterstock 2356088589

5-bullet-placeholder

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

In case you need further proof that U.S. sanctions are misfiring, Russia and China are consolidating to crush the U.S. dollar. 

5 BULLETS: Crussia 

Crussia 

<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" />Caveat MEME-Tor
<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;Following a three-year hiatus, &lsquo;Roaring Kitty&rsquo; suddenly reappeared on Twitter/X late Sunday,&rdquo; recounts Paradigm&rsquo;s trading expert Greg &ldquo;Gunner&rdquo; Guenthner.
In case the pandemic era is little more than a fever dream, Keith Gill (aka Roaring Kitty) gained traction on YouTube and on Reddit&rsquo;s WallStreetBets where he developed quite the following.
So much so, that in 2021 Congress accused the then 30-something of being a GameStop-frenzy ringleader&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1XwIVbGK4cBImTIb6nxGXW/a17e4f443fa5acfc0d79db2f1c890e47/KeithGill.png" alt="Keith Gill" width="450px" />

&ldquo;I am not a cat,&rdquo; Gill clarified for Congress
According to Mr. Gill&rsquo;s written testimony: &ldquo;The idea that I used social media to promote GameStop stock to unwitting investors and influence the market is preposterous. My posts did not cause the movement of billions of dollars into GameStop shares,&rdquo; he said.
Gunner disagrees: &ldquo;The infamous trader made a killing by starting the grassroots short-squeeze movement that gave birth to some of the wildest runs in stock market history.&rdquo;
Then, on Sunday evening? &ldquo;He sparked another run on his beloved GameStop Corp. (GME)
<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;GME exploded higher in 24-hour trading on Robinhood,&rdquo; notes Gunner. &ldquo;The stock promptly doubled Monday morning before getting hit with a midmorning volatility halt. When the dust finally settled, GME closed with a gain of 75% on the day.&rdquo; (This morning? GME shares have pulled back 18.5%)
&ldquo;The Kitty didn&rsquo;t post anything of substance to spark this furious rally &mdash;<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/california-cant-kill-ai#logo"> just a quick meme</a> that made no mention of GME by name. But anyone who was even remotely in tune with the underbelly of the meme market knew exactly what he meant.
&ldquo;For starters, GME shares were already on the move last week,&rdquo; says Gunner. &ldquo;The stock jumped 70% in just three trading days leading up to this week&rsquo;s explosive move. The fuse was lit &mdash; and Roaring Kitty pounced, inspiring an army of speculators to follow his lead&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2eT2yWVBQIfdNyRSK49Xkc/0d04b50d7b306a3b9a5953c1bdc63969/5Bullets_Chart_051624b.png" alt="rise of the zombie memes" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Some of the other also-ran meme names were moving, but GME got most of the attention.
&ldquo;If you asked me late last year if GME would ever post runs like we saw during the COVID bubble ever again, I would have called you crazy. Yet here we are&hellip; the irrational (even psychotic) speculator is back at it once 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" /> &ldquo;It can be nearly impossible to maintain sanity and objectivity as these short squeezes unfold,&rdquo; Gunner says.
&ldquo;Imagine practicing sound trading techniques for years, only to watch some kid with a Robinhood account book a six-figure gain YOLO-ing out-of-the-money weeklies. It&rsquo;s enough to drive a trader completely nuts.
&ldquo;One of the main mistakes I see when I venture onto the message boards is inexperienced traders putting way too much money into a single play &mdash; almost as a &lsquo;get rich or go broke trying&rsquo; strategy,&rdquo; Gunner adds.
&ldquo;But when you&rsquo;re dealing with these extreme stock moves, you don&rsquo;t have to risk a ton of capital to get involved and put up some impressive gains. Why bet the farm on what amounts to a spin of the roulette wheel?
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure that any &lsquo;advice&rsquo; is useful when it comes to meme trades. But if you are going to venture into these shark-infested waters, try not to get sucked into the hype. These are not long-term investments. Don&rsquo;t sweat perfect entries. Take what you can get with tiny positions.
&ldquo;And pack your bags early,&rdquo; Gunner concludes. &ldquo;When that last plane takes off, you don&rsquo;t want to be left standing on the runway.&rdquo;
<a id="2"></a>
Unlike the volatility associated with meme stocks, Gunner's trading strategy offers a smoother ride to profitability. For instance, using his proven strategy, Gunner turned a modest $40,000 portfolio into an impressive $266,894 in only 48 months.
The best part? No prior trading experience is required. Gunner will guide you through every step, empowering you to replicate his success. <a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2322871">Follow this link to unlock a sustainable way to trade.</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" />Gold and &ldquo;Great&rdquo; Inflation
<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;After years of stubborn readings that remain above the Fed&rsquo;s 2% target, gold is finally catching up to past inflation levels,&rdquo; says our income-investing ace Zach Scheidt.
&ldquo;And after years of consolidation, the yellow metal has plenty of room to run before becoming overvalued compared with the past few years of inflation data.
&ldquo;Also, professional investors continue to be a big source of demand,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;as their high-net-worth customers request more exposure from their advisers.
&ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a quick look at the price action for the SPDR Gold Trust (GLD), which tracks the price for spot gold. And GLD&rsquo;s recent pullback didn&rsquo;t even touch the fund&rsquo;s 50-day moving average before starting its rebound&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1r64TfSSZjd0IkA5WjFwa7/554fc604b59c1e556b87e09d5bc2733b/5Bullets_Chart_051624a.png" alt="sign of strength" width="540px" />
&ldquo;This is a sign of strong demand for gold and should lead to much higher prices over the next several weeks,&rdquo; Zach says.
&ldquo;After breaking multiyear resistance levels, the price of gold is now free to appreciate,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;Given the significance of the long-term breakout and the momentum we&rsquo;re seeing in the market right now, I expect gold to continue its strong run.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On Thursday, Walmart beat earnings expectations, citing particularly strong performance from its online and grocery businesses. The bellwether retailer says it&rsquo;s attracting wealthier shoppers looking for bargains.
As for the three major U.S. stock indexes, they&rsquo;re all in the green today, with the Dow leading the way, up 20% and just shy of 40,000. (To give you some perspective, as of today, I&rsquo;ve been working at The 5 for seven years. When I first started, all the talk was about Dow 25,000.) Meanwhile, the S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq are both up about 10% to 5,315 and 17,760 respectively.
Most commodities are also hanging out in positive territory. The price of crude is up 0.70% to $79.16 for a barrel of WTI. Gold, however, has pulled back 0.35% to $2,386 per ounce. But silver? The precious metal is up 0.60%, just a hair below $30. Wow.
Checking briefly on crypto, Bitcoin is down 1% to $65,300. And Ethereum&rsquo;s lost 2%, about $50 under $3,000.
We also have a few noteworthy economic numbers to report today:
<ul>
<li>Mid-Atlantic manufacturing: The closely watched Philly Fed index came in at 4.5 for the month of May &mdash; a steep decline from April&rsquo;s 15.5. Still, any reading above zero indicates expansion in the region; it&rsquo;s the sixth-straight month in positive territory</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Industrial production: April&rsquo;s headline reading was flat from the month before, and slightly less than economists expected. All told, 78.4% of America&rsquo;s industrial capacity was in use during April, still stuck below the 50-year average of 79.7%.</li>
</ul>
Finally, housing starts were 5.7% higher in April over March, but housing permits were down 3% over the same time period.
<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" />Nuclear Industry: It&rsquo;s All Political
<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;Nuclear power [has] been stifled for decades based on one deeply flawed scientific model: the linear no-threshold (LNT) model,&rdquo; says an article at Reason. 
The LNT model can be traced to the work of geneticist Hermann Muller. In the 1920s and 1930s, Muller's research on fruit flies suggested that radiation exposure causes genetic mutations &mdash; which can be passed down to offspring &mdash; and he claimed that there is no safe level of radiation that does not carry this risk.
There is evidence, however, that Muller omitted key information from his research. &ldquo;Human studies of the offspring of Japanese atomic bomb survivors found no significant evidence of genetic damage,&rdquo; Reason says.
&ldquo;Muller helped convince the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to exclude this inconvenient data when it convened an expert panel to assess fallout risks, opting instead to rely on his research using fruit flies and newer studies involving mice.&rdquo;
Later, NAS &ldquo;panelists openly strategized about how conclusions from their report could increase funding for their research,&rdquo; says Reason. 
&ldquo;This conflict of interest resulted in a biased final report that exaggerated health risks from fallout and omitted lower estimates to create a false veneer of consensus.&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" /> All of which &ldquo;catalyzed a major shift in government policy toward reliance on LNT for radiation regulations and risk assessment,&rdquo; Reason continues. And any research that contradicted the LNT model was ordinarily suppressed.
When, for example, geneticists William and Liane Russell discovered the body&rsquo;s DNA repair mechanisms in the late 1950s, the NAS first attempted to &ldquo;bury&rdquo; the research.
&ldquo;Only after several members protested &mdash; including, to his credit, Herman Muller &mdash; was the information added,&rdquo; Reason says. &ldquo;Yet the committee still endorsed LNT.
&ldquo;More recently, the debate over LNT reignited within the Health Physics Society following the launch of a <a href="https://hps.org/hpspublications/historylnt/episodeguide.html">video series</a> in April 2022 that detailed the checkered history of LNT.&rdquo;
Through Freedom of Information Act requests, a series of emails came to light which reveal a concerted attempt to undermine the credibility of the video series and suppress further discussion.
Reason concludes: &ldquo;The sordid history of LNT is a cautionary tale of how flawed science, ideological bias and political motives can distort the search for truth.
&ldquo;LNT shapes onerous radiation regulations that dictate [radiation] risk, leading to exaggerated fears, higher energy costs, and perennially thwarted progress in the nuclear industry.&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" />Good as 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" />Chocolate chip cookies&hellip; with a side of gold bullion? Yes, please!
Austin-based cookie delivery company Tiff's Treats is really diversifying&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/69JVpeQUzVQNi81gcBM2K0/881aa081db44aba0f597f3a3b42941fc/Cookies.png" alt="cookies" width="540px" />

Courtesy: Tiff&rsquo;s Treats
Why pay $21 for a dozen cookies to be delivered to your loved one when you can send cookies plus a 1-ounce gold bar? (Sorta.)
According to the company&rsquo;s website: &ldquo;The 1-ounce bar of gold will arrive within two&ndash;five business days of the cookies' arrival.&rdquo; (Tiff&rsquo;s Treats emphasizes their delivery drivers do not deliver gold and the company does not store gold on its premises. Subtext: Don&rsquo;t get any ideas.)
Prices vary, of course, but the company says: &ldquo;We&rsquo;ve always believed that the gift of our cookies is &lsquo;good as gold&rsquo; but we wanted to go one step further and bundle them with REAL gold.&rdquo;
Yeah, it&rsquo;s gimmicky, but&hellip; gold. 
<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" />Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics
<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;Core, supercore, hedonic adjustment and all the rest of government statistics are just a way to fool the useful idiots who believe them (the statistics and the government),&rdquo; a reader writes about yesterday&rsquo;s <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-fabulous-fed-reducing-diet">inflation-centric </a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-fabulous-fed-reducing-diet">5 Bullets.</a>
&ldquo;An easy way to resolve the &lsquo;volatility&rsquo; argument on food and energy being excluded is to use a somewhat cyclically adjusted measure similar to the CAPE ratio for P/E (1 year not 10) thereby removing the volatility while capturing the very real costs of luxuries and eating, buying gas and having shelter.
&ldquo;Clearly, the reason those prices are not included is because it drives up the annual COLA adjustments on Social Security payments and accelerates the date of insolvency. (I know, it&rsquo;s already insolvent.) It is the chosen method to default on our debt whilst destroying the savings of its citizens.
&ldquo;The only thing growing faster than government debt is the mendacity of those who twist, distort, massage and torture every statistic to palatable levels assisted by the MSM and their official experts on such matters, like Krugman.
&ldquo;Even if one were foolish enough to believe their inflation &lsquo;data,&rsquo; inflation of 3.5% versus the target of 2% &mdash; 3.5% will cut the value of any dollars you have saved over the years in half in just 20.5 years versus taking 36 years at 2%.
&ldquo;And then I read that Biden and Trump will &lsquo;debate&rsquo; on The Howard Stern Show! Oy!
&ldquo;Reminds me of the Nietzsche line about &lsquo;that which is about to fall deserves to be pushed.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Emily: For what it&rsquo;s worth, I believe the president told the OG shock jock that he&rsquo;d be &ldquo;happy&rdquo; to debate Trump. Not, to clarify, on The Howard Stern Show. But, with these clowns, who knows?
And &mdash; hey, now &mdash; considering the advanced ages of our 2024 presidential candidates, we should probably avoid any talk of sudden falls. Or pushes. (Subtext: Don&rsquo;t get any ideas.)
Take care! We&rsquo;ll be back tomorrow.
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 107284424

Infamous trader “Roaring Kitty” sparks another run on GameStop. 

5 BULLETS: Caveat MEME-Tor

Caveat MEME-Tor

<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 Fabulous Fed Reducing Diet
<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;Anyone want to volunteer to live life as &lsquo;supercore inflation&rsquo; for a week?&rdquo; said the inquiry on our e-chat this morning from Paradigm Press publisher Matt Insley. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re homeless, you don&rsquo;t have gas in your car, can&rsquo;t drink coffee &mdash; any takers?&rdquo;
The Labor Department is out today with the April inflation numbers. Compared with the guess of the typical Wall Street economist, this is the first &ldquo;cooler than expected&rdquo; inflation figure we&rsquo;ve seen in weeks.
That said, the official inflation rate is still 3.4% year-over-year &mdash; nowhere near the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s 2% target. And for that matter, it&rsquo;s still higher than it was nine months earlier.
Really, does this chart look like &ldquo;progress&rdquo; in the battle against inflation?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6DoopNjx42DImTrBT3PV2t/c6663bcb82fc3b8317766a7973b1b788/5Bullets_Chart_051524.png" alt="progress against inflation" width="540px" />
Major contributors to inflation during April include housing, health care and auto insurance.
<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 scan through the corporate media, the universal spin is that inflation is looking peachy-keen for people who don&rsquo;t eat or drive.
Bloomberg: &ldquo;A measure of underlying U.S. inflation cooled in April for the first time in six months, a small step in the right direction for Federal Reserve officials looking to start cutting interest rates this year.&rdquo;
The number under discussion here is &ldquo;core&rdquo; inflation &mdash; that is, inflation excluding food and energy. Economists like to play with this number on the theory that food and energy prices are volatile month-to-month; taking them out of the equation allegedly gives better insight to inflation&rsquo;s overall trajectory.
Back when inflation was racing higher in the months leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, the government and the Fed were keen to emphasize the core number &mdash; simply because it wasn&rsquo;t as bad as the headline number. The blogosphere of that day frequently referred to core inflation as, well, inflation for people who don&rsquo;t eat or drive.
That&rsquo;s not the case here; core inflation is running 3.6% year-over-year, more than the 3.4% headline figure. But mainstream economists and media are zeroing in on the fact that the core rate is falling.
In theory, that makes the Fed more likely to cut interest rates sometime in the next four months. But one month does not constitute a trend. As Paradigm macro maven Jim Rickards has said for weeks now, the Fed will want to see a proven trend of falling inflation rates before cutting rates. We&rsquo;re not there. Nowhere near.
<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 the economists and the reporters keep trying. In the last year, they&rsquo;ve settled on something called &ldquo;supercore inflation.&rdquo;
This number excludes food, energy and shelter. Convenient, given sky-high housing prices, right? (Shelter is up 5.5% year-over-year.)
Throw enough things out of the inflation rate, and eventually it looks just swell! Indeed that&rsquo;s what The New York Times&rsquo; resident Nobel-prize winning economist did when he beclowned himself last fall&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1PffTwVAvgFj7BGbE52LQg/b71af718ae7c024918c6696d94d304a1/PaulTweet.png" alt="paul tweet" width="540px" />
Actually, there&rsquo;s a dizzying array of inflation measures, our own Jim Rickards points out: &ldquo;The eggheads at the Fed and Wall Street have devised &lsquo;core CPI&rsquo; (excluding food and energy), &lsquo;supercore CPI&rsquo; (excluding food, energy and housing), &lsquo;core PCE&rsquo; (a completely different index that the Fed prefers and also excludes food and energy), &lsquo;trimmed mean CPI&rsquo; (this measure disregards the highest and lowest figures as &lsquo;outliers&rsquo;), and so on.
&ldquo;These measures are devised by economists who must not have enough to do. I understand them all, but I also understand that they&rsquo;re abstractions that don&rsquo;t sync up with what people actually pay. Show me someone who does not spend money on food, gas, home heating and rent and maybe I&rsquo;ll pay attention but not sooner.&rdquo;
In any event, no one took up publisher Matt Insley on his challenge today. No roof over your head, no fuel for heat or transportation, and a week-long fast.
Call it the fabulous Fed reducing diet. It takes the concept of dieting to the utmost: The results are out of this world&hellip; but no one can stick to it.
<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" />Rallies All Around Today (Except Meme 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" /> Wall Street likes the inflation numbers &mdash; but that&rsquo;s just one of many cross-currents in the markets today.
All the major U.S. stock indexes are solidly in the green: At 5,293 the S&amp;P 500 is on track to set a record close for the first time in over six weeks. The Nasdaq already set a record close yesterday and it&rsquo;s up another 1% today at 16,686.
Not sharing in the celebration are the meme stocks that took off like a rocket Monday and yesterday. GameStop is down nearly 33%, AMC Entertainment down 24%.
Yesterday, the meme stocks&rsquo; gains were crypto&rsquo;s losses &mdash; with speculative money finding a new home for the moment. But attention spans are short and today the trend has reversed &mdash; Bitcoin is back within striking distance of $65,000 for the first time in three weeks. (More about crypto shortly in Bullet no. 3&hellip;)
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s crazy to see these meme stocks back in the spotlight,&rdquo; writes Greg Guenthner at The Trading Desk. &ldquo;If you asked me late last year if GME and AMC would ever post runs like we saw during the COVID bubble ever again, I would have called you crazy. Yet here we are&hellip; the irrational (even psychotic) speculator is back at it once again.
&ldquo;I won&rsquo;t sit here and tell you how long this move will last. The only thing I know is how it all ends. The squeeze will eventually sputter and these stocks will fall back to earth. The X factor is when&hellip;&rdquo;
For his part, Greg prefers to apply a trading strategy with way fewer stomach-churning moments than you get trading meme stocks. He transformed a model portfolio of $40,000 into $266,894 over the space of two years. Best of all, you don&rsquo;t need any trading experience to put his system to work &mdash; <a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2322544">as he shows you when you follow this link</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />And Don&rsquo;t Forget Precious Metals
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Meanwhile, precious metals are screaming higher.
As conventional wisdom has it, gold and silver are more attractive at times of low or falling interest rates. If the Fed is going to &ldquo;pivot&rdquo; to lower rates sooner than expected, that&rsquo;s good for precious metals.
Never mind that today&rsquo;s inflation numbers will do nothing to change the Fed&rsquo;s mind about rates yet: Gold is up $27 to record territory at $2,385 and silver is up 79 cents, back above $29 and testing its year-to-date highs.
&ldquo;This is a huge area for silver,&rdquo; says the aforementioned Greg Guenthner. &ldquo;A breakout here would take silver to prices we haven't seen in over a decade. The environment is quickly changing in favor of an extended run in precious metals. Silver and miners have been a little slow to catch on as gold got its footing above $2K, but they're really starting to move now.&rdquo;
Copper poked its nose over $5 a pound this morning; Greg says it&rsquo;s time for the red metal to take a rest, at least for a few days.
Crude is up a tad to $78.45 after the Energy Department&rsquo;s weekly inventory numbers.
<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 addition to the inflation figures, there&rsquo;s another economic number worth noting: April retail sales came in way below expectations &mdash; ruler-flat, in contrast with the typical Wall Street economist&rsquo;s guess of a 0.4% jump.
If you factor out auto sales (volatile month-to-month) and gasoline sales (rising gas prices can skew the number), you end up with a 0.1% decline &mdash; versus a consensus guess of a 0.1% bump.
<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" />Was the Halving Really a Nothingburger?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As mentioned above, Bitcoin is rallying today &mdash; but there&rsquo;s an air of disappointment in some corners of cryptoland.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s been almost a month since the Bitcoin halving &mdash; the quadrennial event that reduces the rewards for miners by half,&rdquo; says Paradigm senior crypto analyst Chris Campbell.
Bitcoin&rsquo;s price is no higher now than it was at the time of the halving on April 20. But Chris counsels patience.
&ldquo;One month after 2016&rsquo;s halving event, Bitcoin's price was down 10%,&rdquo; he says &mdash; a drop that closely resembles the drop to the late-April lows. But patience paid off: &ldquo;One year later, the price was up 285%.
&ldquo;The 2020 halving followed a similar pattern. One month after the event, Bitcoin's price had dipped by 6%. But true to form, one year later, the price had surged by an impressive 548%.&rdquo;
And consider this: Chris has sought out the most authoritative estimates he can find &mdash; and concluded crypto adoption is growing at least 40% a year.
Here&rsquo;s the thing &mdash; that&rsquo;s double the adoption rate of the smartphone during the decade after the iPhone&rsquo;s introduction in 2007. Faster than the internet too &mdash; and on par with the growth rate of social media during the 2010s.
Bottom line: &ldquo;Short-term volatility is to be expected, but the long-term trend has been positive.&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: &ldquo;Officious Intermeddlers&rdquo; and New Mexico Chile
<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 Sen. Elizabeth Warren&rsquo;s proposal for <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/summer-of-shortages">a White House crackdown on grocers</a>, a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;Fauxcahontas is what we called in law school torts class &lsquo;an officious intermeddler.&rsquo;
&ldquo;But I think that C.S. Lewis said it best in this quote:
"&lsquo;Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.&rsquo;"
Dave responds: Nice one. The ethos of this e-letter is deeply suspicious of for-your-own-good schemes &mdash; whether it&rsquo;s as prosaic as brokerages that refuse to make Bitcoin ETFs available or as pernicious as government agencies colluding with the social media giants to shield you from &ldquo;misinformation.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />One more reader wishes to weigh in on the subject of New Mexico Hatch chile&hellip;
&ldquo;Although my wife and I are not planning to relocate to New Mexico, we have visited there several times. We agree that the New Mexico Hatch chile is a phenomenon and have bought large bags of them every time we have visited.
&ldquo;If you happen to visit there don't miss La Mesilla on the Rio Grande not far from Las Cruces. Also the White Sands and Santa Fe.&rdquo;
Dave: Adding them to the list!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
&nbsp;
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 2088032953

Call it the fabulous Fed reducing diet… It takes the concept of dieting to the utmost. 

5 BULLETS: The Fabulous Fed Reducing Diet

The Fabulous Fed Reducing Diet

<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" />Election-Year Price Controls?
<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 don&rsquo;t want to be alarmist and say food shortages are in America&rsquo;s immediate future.
All the same, we aim to keep you ahead of the curve &mdash; in your investments, yes, but also in the logistics of day-to-day living. If shortages come to pass, you can&rsquo;t say we didn&rsquo;t warn you.
Begin with the latest presidential polling data from the six &ldquo;battleground states&rdquo; where the Electoral College will be decided this November.
Among &ldquo;likely voters,&rdquo; Donald Trump is leading in five of them, says The New York Times &mdash; which commissioned the survey. The Gray Lady chalks up Trump&rsquo;s lead to &ldquo;a yearning for change and discontent over the economy and the war in Gaza among young, Black and Hispanic voters&rdquo; &mdash; which threatens &ldquo;to unravel the president&rsquo;s Democratic coalition.&rdquo;
What&rsquo;s the Biden administration to do to regain an edge?
<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;A group of Democratic lawmakers are calling on President Joe Biden to investigate grocery store chains for price manipulation,&rdquo; reports Time.
A group of six senators and 35 representatives sent a letter to the White House yesterday. As Time says, the letter asserts that the president &ldquo;should use executive authority to take additional enforcement action to address rising food prices without the help of Congress.&rdquo;
The letter is the brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) &mdash; who accuses the major grocery chains of &ldquo;price gouging,&rdquo; seizing on the COVID supply chain snags of 2020&ndash;2022 to keep prices elevated.
&ldquo;Big food companies want to keep these huge profits and they're hiring plenty of lobbyists to keep Congress from acting,&rdquo; Warren tells Time. &ldquo;Congress has stalled out on doing work that it could do to help families lower costs&hellip; and the president has the tools to fight back.&rdquo;
Both this year and two years ago, Warren tried to push a Price Gouging Prevention Act through Congress, to no avail. The measure would have made it generally unlawful &ldquo;to sell or offer for sale a good or service at an unconscionably excessive price during an exceptional market shock.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Unconscionably excessive&rdquo;? &ldquo;Exceptional&rdquo;? The language was squishy but the penalties for violations were not &mdash; fines totaling 5% of the parent company&rsquo;s revenue.
<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" /> During the worst of the inflationary spike of 2022, a midterm election year, we mused now and then about the possibility the White House would impose price controls.
It never came to that, but inflation is persisting (see Bullet No. 2) &mdash; and now it&rsquo;s a presidential election year.
Typically, price controls lead to shortages. If you remember the gas lines of the 1970s, they didn&rsquo;t occur because the OPEC nations were jacking up the price of crude oil. They occurred because refiners and retailers couldn&rsquo;t jack up their prices to compensate.
As economists like to say, prices convey information. Higher prices mean supplies are tight; the price conveys information that encourages people to dial back their consumption until the supply squeeze eases.
But that information was lacking amid the 1973 oil shock. Better to have something available at a high price than nothing at any price.
To be sure, food price controls in 2024 remain squarely in the realm of speculation. But a trial balloon is being floated this week. We pass along the word as a public service.
<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" />Ooh, Inflation Is SO Hot
<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" />Another day, another hotter-than-expected inflation number.
The Labor Department is out with the wholesale inflation figures for April. The producer price index registers a month-over-month increase of 0.5% &mdash; higher than the highest guess among dozens of Wall Street economists polled by Econoday.
Even if you strip out food and energy prices &mdash; the statisticians justify that on the grounds that those prices are &ldquo;volatile&rdquo; &mdash; the jump is higher than any of the alleged experts forecast.
Year-over-year, wholesale inflation is now running 2.2% &mdash; the highest in 12 months.
Ninety minutes after those numbers came out, Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell spoke at a confab of the Foreign Bankers&rsquo; Association in Amsterdam. &ldquo;We did not expect this to be a smooth road,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;But these [inflation readings] were higher than I think anybody expected.&rdquo;
Anybody? Speak for yourself, pal. You&rsquo;re the guy who insisted throughout 2021 that inflation would prove to be &ldquo;transitory&rdquo;... only to embark in 2022 on the most aggressive cycle of interest rate hikes in 40-plus years&hellip; and even now inflation remains well above your 2% target.
Speaking of inflation and its impact&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;Cost pressures remain the top issue for small-business owners, including historically high levels of owners raising compensation to keep and attract employees,&rdquo; says Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business.
The NFIB is out today with its monthly Small Business Optimism index &mdash; up 1.2 points in April to 89.7.
It&rsquo;s the first time the number has risen this year &mdash; but for the 28th-straight month, the number is mired below its long-term average going back to 1973.
On the portion of the survey where respondents are asked to identify their single-most important problem, inflation remains tops at 22%.
But judging by this month&rsquo;s responses, the labor shortage isn&rsquo;t over yet &mdash; with 19% citing &ldquo;quality of labor&rdquo; (good help is hard to find) and another 11% citing the cost of labor.
Taxes &mdash; a perennial favorite &mdash; is cited by 15%. Everything else is in single digits.
<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" /> Mr. Market is shrugging off those higher-than-expected wholesale inflation numbers.
The major U.S. stock indexes are either flat or, in the case of the Nasdaq, modestly higher. At 5,224 the S&amp;P 500 remains about 0.6% below its record close set in late March. It will be interesting to see whether traders retain this what-me-worry attitude if the consumer inflation figures register hot tomorrow.
The meme stocks continue to attract capital after yesterday&rsquo;s big ramp higher &mdash; GameStop up 65% at last check, and the movie-theater chain AMC Entertainment up 55%.
Gold is recovering some of the mojo it gave up yesterday, the bid up nearly 15 bucks to $2,350. Silver is solidly in the green at $28.44.
Crude has shed nearly a buck to $78.19. Bitcoin continues to struggle for traction at $61,682.
<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" />Power Struggle
<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 second day in a row, we have a looming red-state dispute with the Biden administration over the power grid.
Yesterday we told you how Republican attorneys general in 25 states are suing the EPA &mdash; which is trying to rush through new rules that aim to shut down coal-fired power plants.
Today, the same group might be looking to sue the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission &mdash; the body that oversees the interstate transmission and wholesaling of electricity and natural gas.
Yesterday, FERC &ldquo;finalized rules designed to speed up building the power grid of the future&rdquo; as Bloomberg spun the news &mdash; &ldquo;approving the biggest reforms in at least a decade to enable the energy transition, meet soaring demand and offer protection from extreme weather.&rdquo;
FERC chair Willie Phillips portrayed the decision as coming at a &ldquo;make or break moment.&rdquo; Without dramatic action, &ldquo;we won&rsquo;t be able to keep the lights on.&rdquo;
The vote was 2-1, with FERC&rsquo;s lone Republican commissioner Mark Christie dissenting. He objects to rules giving regional grid operators the authority to override state-level officials.
&ldquo;This rule is a pretext to enact a sweeping policy agenda that Congress never passed,&rdquo; says Christie. As he sees it, the result will be &ldquo;a massive transfer of wealth from consumers to for-profit special interests&rdquo; &mdash; namely solar and wind operators.
Nothing official yet, but it wouldn&rsquo;t be at all surprising to see GOP attorneys general banding together once again to challenge these rules in court. To be continued&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" />Copper: This Almost Never Happens, but It&rsquo;s Happening Now
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Copper prices remain elevated at over $4.50 a pound &mdash; not far off 2022&rsquo;s record levels &mdash; and it appears a supply squeeze is in progress.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/443OqyakGygs4SvR9FLpMQ/661522b51d6eb3c9c7f5aab3678e60ee/BrandonTweet.png" alt="Brandon Tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;TC&rdquo; is short for &ldquo;treatment and refining charges.&rdquo; In normal times, smelters collect a fee from miners for processing copper concentrate.
But these are not normal times: Supply is so tight that smelters are willing to pay the miners to collect the miners&rsquo; product.
&ldquo;In such a scenario,&rdquo; writes one industry observer on Xwitter, &ldquo;smelters may accept a negative TC rate to ensure they have enough concentrate to keep their operations running at full capacity. This situation is typically driven by a combination of factors, including strong demand for copper, limited new concentrate supply and potential disruptions in concentrate production or transportation.&rdquo;
Result: Some miners are selling their product forward &mdash; that is, they&rsquo;re selling stuff they haven&rsquo;t yet produced &mdash; as much as three or four years into the future.
&ldquo;We were inundated with offers. People were very aggressive with their bids,&rdquo; one miner tells the Fastmarkets website. &ldquo;Opportunities like this don&rsquo;t last long,&rdquo;
Or will they? &ldquo;Fastmarkets heard of multiple deals signed at negative TCs for 2025,&rdquo; the website reports, &ldquo;with market sources saying that traders expected concentrate supply to be tight for a long time. &lsquo;It seems inevitable,&rsquo; one trader said.&rdquo;
Little wonder, perhaps, in light of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/ai-nukes-and-gold#3">the chart we shared with you last week</a> &mdash; along with a brief exploration of two leading copper-miner ETFs for your consideration.
<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" />Climbing High to Steal Copper
<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" />Staying with the subject of high copper prices&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/WeTKs7sJ4N6pmKpRKgBAx/df573b26901a255b69eac11a4ffc3f04/Thievesclimbing.png" alt="thieves climbing" width="540px" />
Presumably it&rsquo;s a nationwide phenomenon &mdash; but Houston&rsquo;s KPRC-TV reports that in the last six months alone, the city&rsquo;s police force has investigated at least 20 cases of copper wire thefts from&hellip; high atop mobile phone towers.
Sounds dangerous, you say? Yes. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re free climbing,&rdquo; says Carey McGrew of South Texas Cellular Services &mdash; meaning they&rsquo;re not bothering with the usual safety harnesses, etc. &ldquo;So it&rsquo;s like you&rsquo;re putting your life at risk, climbing this to get not much at all.&rdquo;
Climbing up high enables a thief to steal hundreds of feet of wire in one fell swoop. Still, the payoff can be meager.
&ldquo;I know that we had one, and he only got 180 bucks at the scrapyard,&rdquo; McGrew tells the NBC affiliate. &ldquo;But, I mean, just depending on what they steal, they could get a couple thousand [or a] couple hundred. Just depends on what they&rsquo;re stealing.&rdquo;
Unscrupulous scrapyard operators frequently know when they&rsquo;re buying stolen goods. They know the sellers are desperate for cash &mdash; so they can often buy for pennies on the dollar.
Meanwhile, damage to a single cable at one tower can knock out service to several nearby towers. &ldquo;Sometimes the towers work as a hub,&rdquo; says McGrew. &ldquo;If they take out one, it takes out like a ring of towers. It would take out seven, eight, maybe even more at a time.&rdquo;
Bad news if one of those towers is the closest to you and you need 911. And even if you don&rsquo;t, repairs can cost between $10,000&ndash;25,000 a pop. Just one more reason behind your rising wireless bill&hellip;
Sorry to end today&rsquo;s edition on a downer. On the one hand, this story falls under the category of Would you believe THIS? On the other hand, it also falls under the category of In the present day and age, YES.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 1989621758

We don’t want to be alarmist and say food shortages are in America’s immediate future. All the same, we aim to keep you ahead of the curve. 

5 BULLETS: Summer of Shortages

Summer of Shortages

<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" />Even California Lawmakers Can&rsquo;t Kill AI
<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 a new week with something that falls under the broad category of Stupid California Tricks.
A bill in the Golden State legislature aims to &ldquo;impose a whole bunch of safety requirements on companies building foundational models,&rdquo; writes economist Noah Smith at his Noahpinion site. &ldquo;If the models are found to cause major havoc, the bill would hold companies liable for some portion of the costs.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s a fundamental problem here and it&rsquo;s this: The bill &ldquo;demands that AI companies know all sorts of things that their model can and can't do before the model is trained on the data,&rdquo; Smith says.
&ldquo;As far as I know, that's not even possible; you don't really know what a model can do before it's trained.
&ldquo;In fact, even after a model like ChatGPT is trained, it seems impossible to really know what dangerous stuff it could be used to do. Does anyone think we know, right now, whether GPT-4 is actually capable of causing catastrophic harm, in the hands of the right villain? I don&rsquo;t think so. And GPT-4 has been out for over a year now; when we&rsquo;re talking about new models, we&rsquo;ll have even less knowledge to go on.&rdquo;
The good news is that the bill is so sloppily written that Smith anticipates it will have little impact in slowing down AI innovation. If only every law could be like that!
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Speaking of AI innovation, millions of people with no previous exposure to AI are starting to get a taste this month.
That&rsquo;s because Meta has started rolling out its Llama 3 AI model to 4 billion users of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. &ldquo;For many,&rdquo; says Paradigm AI authority James Altucher, &ldquo;it will be their first interaction with generative AI.
&ldquo;To help familiarize new users with the technology, Meta has taken a page out of Google Search's autocomplete playbook by providing users with suggestions for how to use it.&rdquo;
James says this newest iteration of Llama&rsquo;s large-language model is &ldquo;a beast. With over 400 billion parameters Meta&rsquo;s latest model has seven times more data than Llama 2, allowing it to outperform competing models on key benchmarks and tasks like coding.&rdquo;
And Llama 3 is set for continuous upgrades: The company just set aside $30 billion to buy Nvidia chips, the better to amp up Llama 3&rsquo;s training.
<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 perhaps the most &ldquo;disruptive&rdquo; thing about Llama is that it will give Meta a toehold in the lucrative field of search.
&ldquo;With the new tool,&rdquo; says James, &ldquo;Meta's AI assistant is pulling real-time search results from both Bing and Google.
&ldquo;While Meta is relying on external search engines at the moment, it's conceivable they could eventually build search capabilities in-house.&rdquo;
Given how badly the quality of Google&rsquo;s search results has deteriorated over the last five years, that would be a welcome development indeed!
&ldquo;Of course,&rdquo; James points out, &ldquo;Google is unlikely to allow Meta to steal their cash cow.
Google is expected to announce its own set of new AI functionalities at its annual I/O conference&rdquo; &mdash; which happens to get underway tomorrow.
It&rsquo;s still exciting times in the AI space &mdash; and James says it&rsquo;s not too late to get in.
In fact, he tells us the next six weeks are an ideal opportunity to get started. That&rsquo;s because excitement is building toward the global AI event of the summer &mdash; unleashing several new profit catalysts. For James&rsquo; updated introduction to AI&rsquo;s investment possibilities, <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2321461">look no further than this link</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" />Inflation Retreating to 2%? Forget It
<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" /> Even mainstream economists are starting to acknowledge that inflation is not under control.
Paradigm&rsquo;s income-investing ace Zach Scheidt spent much of last week at the MoneyShow in San Francisco. You run into a lot of conventional wisdom about both economics and investing at this event &mdash; but for Zach, there&rsquo;s still plenty of worthwhile insight if you know where to look.
One presentation that stood out was from Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel Financial. &ldquo;She believes that we are NOT on a sustainable path back towards 2% inflation levels,&rdquo; Zach says.
&ldquo;We all know that the Fed faces significant challenges in trying to get the inflation rate back to 2% and because we&rsquo;ve sort of leveled off and we&rsquo;re no longer tracking back toward that 2% target, Piegza believes that we&rsquo;re in for a reckoning of sorts.&rdquo;
Just what that reckoning looks like, it&rsquo;s too soon to say: Does the Fed resume rate hikes or does it adjust its 2% inflation target higher?
<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 that question, another speaker offered insight &mdash; Jose Torres, senior economist at Interactive Brokers.
&ldquo;He said that the Fed has implicitly accepted inflation above their 2% target,&rdquo; Zach tells us &mdash; because &ldquo;it&rsquo;s impossible to get inflation back to 2% if wages are growing by 4% or more. And we really are seeing wage growth outstrip inflation in some areas. This is helping give consumers more money to spend.
&ldquo;The Fed certainly does not want to hurt jobs or cause the economy to go into a recession, which is why Torres explained that the actions of the Fed right now are showing that they do not have the strength or the gumption to get back to that 2% inflation level.&rdquo;
Which lines up perfectly with <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/an-inflation-carol">the historical research we told you about last year</a>: Once inflation sails past the 5% level, it typically takes a decade to bring it back to a &ldquo;normal&rdquo; 2%. Thus, inflation hedges like gold and natural-resource stocks are likely to outperform through the rest of the 2020s.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Speaking of inflation, the big economic report today is another survey showing that everyday folks expect inflation to persist.
<a id="logo"></a>
On the heels of the University of Michigan consumer-sentiment figures we mentioned Friday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is out with its own survey: The typical respondent to this survey believes inflation a year from now will be running 3.3%, up from 3.0% a month ago. Five years out, the expectation is for 2.8% inflation, up from 2.6% a month ago.
The survey results come two days before the next market-moving economic number &mdash; the official April inflation figures.
<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 meantime, the major U.S. stock indexes are inching higher &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 at 5,224, about 30 points shy of its record close in late March.
The big movers today include GameStop Corp. the darling of the &ldquo;meme stock&rdquo; craze in early 2021. It seems &ldquo;Roaring Kitty&rdquo; &mdash; the former insurance marketer behind the short squeeze in GME shares back then &mdash; resurfaced on social media last night for the first time in three years with this cryptic post suggesting he&rsquo;s &ldquo;back in the game&rdquo;&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6E5dNbEcQzLR38nIN7J1Vh/b5f0cc25b8910cb71135f5eb811b1955/RoaringKitty.png" alt="roaring kitty" width="540px" />
No, he didn&rsquo;t actually disclose a new position in GME or anything like that. Nonetheless, GME is up 70% on the day.
And the excitement is spilling over to other bro-tastic names like Robinhood (up 6.6% on the day) and Reddit (up 9.6% today after its IPO in late March).
Sorry, we don&rsquo;t have any brilliant insights about why this is happening now. But we did think the meme-stock frenzy of early 2021 was a social and cultural phenomenon, as well as a financial one. As we spelled out in detail back then, it was <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2021/02/01/the-millennials-revenge/">a generation&rsquo;s revenge</a> on their elders for the 2008 financial crisis.
Elsewhere, &ldquo;Mr. Slammy&rdquo; did not take down gold on Friday afternoon as we feared, but he did take down gold when Asian trading opened for a new week. At last check the bid is down $27 to $2,332. But silver is hanging tough, down only 6 cents and still holding the line on $28.
Crude is up over 50 cents to $78.83; Bitcoin hovers a little below $63,000.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />&ldquo;Trump-Proofing&rdquo; &mdash; Here Comes the Counterstrike
<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 coalition of attorneys general from &ldquo;red states&rdquo; is suing to stop the EPA&rsquo;s new rules targeting emissions from coal-fired power plants.
Led by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey, 25 states are challenging the Biden administration&rsquo;s Clean Power Plan 2.0.
&ldquo;This rule strips the states of important discretion while using technologies that don&rsquo;t work in the real world,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;This administration packaged this rule with several other rules aimed at destroying traditional energy providers.&rdquo;
As Politico&rsquo;s E&amp;E News site reports, &ldquo;The lawsuit filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sets up a familiar rematch between the nation&rsquo;s leading environmental regulator and a host of red states that have challenged Biden initiatives and scored a major win at the Supreme Court in 2022 that limited EPA&rsquo;s climate authority.&rdquo;
Of course, we take an interest in this case in light of the continued alarms we&rsquo;ve sounded the last couple of years about the stability and capacity of the power grid. There&rsquo;s not enough new wind and solar capacity to replace the coal and nuke plants that are being shut down &mdash; especially with all these power-hungry AI data centers coming online.
<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 the timing of the suit also makes us sit up and take notice.
The suit was filed last Thursday, as soon as the rules were published in the Federal Register.
Recall how we told you last week that the Biden administration is rushing to implement <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/todays-issue-is-not-about-politics">scads of new regulations</a> affecting a host of industries before the end of this month. If they take effect any later, there&rsquo;s the potential they could be easily nixed by a second Trump administration with the help of congressional Republicans.
&ldquo;Trump-proofing&rdquo; is what this current White House effort is called &mdash; a term our own Jim Rickards helped to go viral last month.
Here&rsquo;s the thing: If the courts issue a temporary stay of the Clean Power Plan 2.0 rules, that pauses the clock on their implementation. If the case remains unresolved after this month, the rules become much more vulnerable to being undone under Trump. Stay tuned&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" />Five Years After a Tesla Stunt&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" /> Behold, the gift for people who have more money than sense&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6JIviY1GfJFv5AUC1vFYoY/10be38bad378bb5059e7af8d47bc912e/Teslaconomics.png" alt="Teslaconomics" width="540px" />
We need to hark back to 2019 for this one &mdash; when Tesla designer Franz von Holzhousen demonstrated the durability of the company&rsquo;s prototype Cybertruck by bashing the doors with a sledgehammer.
Earlier this year, Tesla made a limited-edition series of &ldquo;CyberHammers&rdquo; with a &ldquo;Franz&rdquo; signature on its head. You could get them only through Tesla&rsquo;s referral program &mdash; &ldquo;which gives owners a code to share with a prospective buyer,&rdquo; explained The Truth About Cars site. &ldquo;If the buyer moves forward with their purchase, the referring Tesla owner gets credits that can be used for rewards like free charging or a CyberHammer.&rdquo;
Evidently, the swag was such a hit that a few days ago the company opted to offer the CyberHammer as a stand-alone purchase &mdash; for $700. The disclaimer was amusing&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4jM2YQ0jSlies9QRWvLg2W/f092a6dc60f6d2ae63158df24d0131fc/Note.png" alt="note" width="350px" />
Only 800 were made, and they&rsquo;re now sold out.
Have to say, it&rsquo;ll be interesting to see what they fetch in resale/collectible value on eBay a few years hence&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" />About the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State&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;I just wanted to let you know why there is a Chile Pepper Institute in New Mexico that might be of interest to you and your readers,&rdquo; says a note that landed in our inbox after our item <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/dont-count-out-the-mag-7">in Friday&rsquo;s edition</a> about an impending sriracha shortage.
&ldquo;New Mexico Hatch chile is a certain type of chile specific to New Mexico. It's not a huge crop so it is not something known internationally or even across the country. Green and red chiles to New Mexicans are as apple pie and Fourth of July are to Americans. It provides the state with a sizable income. Not to mention that red, green or Christmas (red and green) is served on almost anything you can think of.
&ldquo;The New Mexico State Chile Pepper Institute provides research for better chile crops, yield prevention of farming disease and a general global view of chile production. So yeah, the New Mexico State Chile Pepper Institute is a legit thing.
&ldquo;I invite you and all of your readers to come to New Mexico. The land is beautiful, there is a laidback atmosphere here and a lot of historical sites to see and the chili is phenomenal. New Mexican food is not Mexican food. It is not Tex-Mex. It is its own genre of food that is not replicated anywhere else in the country. Come try it. You might find yourself to become what New Mexicans happily call ourselves, chile addicts!
&ldquo;Love The 5 and all of your work that you put out.&rdquo;
Dave responds: My wife and I have long had a hankering to see the Southwest, which neither of us ever have. (The 48 hours I dropped into Las Vegas for <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-40-year-party-is-over">the Paradigm Shift Summit last fall</a> doesn&rsquo;t count.) Now you&rsquo;ve really whetted our appetite, as it were!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 239941192

A bill in the Golden State legislature could fall under the broad category of Stupid California Tricks. 

5 BULLETS: California Can’t Kill AI

California Can’t Kill AI

<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" />&ldquo;As Always, Price Trumps Narrative&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" />Life comes at you fast.
From Bloomberg: &ldquo;The rally that has powered stocks this month is putting the market on the brink of a record, with traders betting that a potential Federal Reserve pivot this year will bolster the outlook for corporate profits.&rdquo;
That story was posted last night and updated this morning at 9:55 a.m. EDT.
Five minutes later, the narrative fell apart. The University of Michigan issued its latest consumer sentiment numbers. The headline number came in way below what Wall Street analysts were counting on.
Worse, the &ldquo;inflation expectations&rdquo; portion of the survey shows that the typical American consumer expects inflation to run 3.5% over the next 12 months &mdash; up from 3.2% a month ago, indeed the highest level since November.
Federal Reserve policymakers pay close attention to this inflation expectations number. Inflation has a nasty way of feeding on itself if people get into a mindset of &ldquo;better buy stuff now before the price goes up again.&rdquo;
So much for an imminent &ldquo;pivot&rdquo; to lower interest rates.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s the thing: The narrative fell apart, but the market did not.
Yes, the major U.S. stock indexes gave up some of their early gains. But it wasn&rsquo;t a sudden, sharp reversal deep into the red. At last check, the S&amp;P 500 is flat on the day, less than three-quarters of a percent below its all-time closing high set in late March.
&ldquo;While we were all expecting a bigger correction in April, stocks have reversed higher and have repaired much of the damage,&rdquo; says Paradigm trading pro Greg &ldquo;Gunner&rdquo; Guenthner.
&ldquo;As always, price trumps narrative.&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" /> Which brings us back to the counterintuitive reactions we&rsquo;ve seen during this earnings season.
Earlier this year, folks were ready to write off the &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; tech-adjacent names &mdash; downgrading them to &ldquo;Fabulous 4&rdquo; or even a &ldquo;Dynamic Duo&rdquo; of only Nvidia and Meta.
But go figure: &ldquo;Apple and Tesla finally found traction and pushed higher after failing to participate in the first-quarter melt-up rally,&rdquo; says Gunner.
&ldquo;Perhaps more importantly, both stocks rallied on &lsquo;bad&rsquo; earnings, according to the financial media and Wall Street analysts. Apple beat top- and bottom-line estimates, yet reported a 10% year-over-year drop in iPhone sales and offered lackluster guidance. Meanwhile, Tesla reported quarterly profits sinking to three-year lows&rdquo; &mdash; and sales sliding the most in over a decade.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2VWbi5XwrTVRAHhKTLZ3NT/a44b295c0ea41fffc2fe1781be645a5f/5Bullets_Chart_051024.png" alt="Tesla Finds a Bottom" width="540px" />
&ldquo;One of our main concerns heading into spring trading was how some mega-caps like AAPL and TSLA were decoupling from the melt-up. But I think it&rsquo;s time to cross that worry off the list. Unless we see these two names completely fill those earnings gaps and move lower, our bias should remain to the upside.&rdquo;
As for today&rsquo;s action&hellip; &ldquo;Consumer sentiment falling/inflation rising is obviously a bad combo. That was the 10 a.m. gut-punch,&rdquo; Gunner tells his Trading Desk readers. &ldquo;Semiconductors and software are still somehow holding it together, but everything is fading from its highs.&rdquo;
[Through this weekend only, we&rsquo;re offering discounted access to Gunner&rsquo;s Trading Desk recommendations.
They&rsquo;ll position you for success in any market &mdash; up, down or sideways. Readers like you have booked gains like 200% in 10 days&hellip; 224% in 12 days&hellip; and 439% in three weeks. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2321068">Follow this link and Gunner will walk you through his one-of-a-kind strategy</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" />Precious Metals on the Edge
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Meanwhile, precious metals are on a knife edge as the week winds down.
Prices zoomed higher through much of yesterday. But now that momentum is waning, gold at $2,364 and silver at $28.20. The ever-present &ldquo;Mr. Slammy&rdquo; &mdash; the shadowy forces that slam down precious metals prices and snuff the life out of rallies &mdash; tends to make an appearance shortly before the Friday close.
And longer-term?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3NutPVYk93WYRy1HW77aSf/36899bf59e270f23d761b41590756d93/PeterTweet.png" alt="Peter Tweet" width="540px" />
Paradigm&rsquo;s recovering investment banker Sean Ring is more certain. As he writes in <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/major-miners">today&rsquo;s </a><a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/major-miners">Rude Awakening</a>, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m loath to sound like other newsletter writers who tell their readers, &lsquo;You must act now! If you don&rsquo;t, you&rsquo;ll lose out forever!&rsquo;
&ldquo;But I genuinely believe it&rsquo;s the time of the precious metals and their miners.&rdquo;
The miners especially. Even with gold prices trading over $2,300 for the last five weeks, the miners are truly unloved &mdash; trading far below their 2010&ndash;11 highs, and for that matter still 20% below their 2020 levels. Whenever gold and silver prices begin the next leg higher, expect the miners to massively outperform.
Elsewhere in the markets, Bitcoin is plunging below $61,000, giving up all its gains from the previous 24 hours. Crude has slipped back below $79.
<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" /> Dystopia Watch
<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 IRS is out with the latest edition of its Internal Revenue Manual. It seems the agency has expanded its remit beyond just tax collection.
Independent reporter Ken Klippenstein &mdash; now on his own after a long stint at The Intercept &mdash; has <a href="https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/irs-targets-threats-to-feds-ability?utm_source=post-email-title&amp;publication_id=7677&amp;post_id=144476382&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=ropls&amp;triedRedirect=true&amp;utm_medium=email">been digging</a> into the manual&rsquo;s contents.
&ldquo;Buried in the fine print,&rdquo; he writes, &ldquo;is the revelation that the IRS is pivoting away from its post-9/11 focus on financing of foreign terror groups like al-Qaida and criminal money laundering to a much broader and ill-defined &lsquo;national security&rsquo; threat.&rdquo;
Indeed, IRS task forces that used to be designated as &ldquo;narcotics and terrorism&rdquo; are now designated &ldquo;national security.&rdquo;
The IRS defines national security as &ldquo;The national defense or foreign relations of the U.S. and includes, within a Treasury context, U.S. economic vitality, global competitiveness, market sensitivity and tracking terrorist assets/financial crimes.&rdquo;
Talk about broad and ill-defined: Among other things, the IRS now presumes the authority to investigate individuals and organizations that &ldquo;conduct or facilitate cyber or other activities that threaten to destabilize the U.S. critical infrastructure, key resources or ability to govern.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Ability to govern&rdquo;?
As Klippenstein sums up, &ldquo;The IRS is casting a wide net that could entangle anyone from Americans protesting their government&rsquo;s &lsquo;foreign relations&rsquo; to day traders.
Remember that trite slogan from the early days of the Patriot Act? &ldquo;If you&rsquo;ve got nothing to hide, you&rsquo;ve got nothing to fear.&rdquo;
Yeah, it wasn&rsquo;t true then and it sure as hell isn&rsquo;t true now.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On a related note, the feds have resumed their strong-arm tactics with the social media companies &mdash; pushing them to censor content that runs afoul of official narratives.
Not that the NextGov website puts it in those terms exactly: &ldquo;Key federal agencies have resumed discussions with social media companies over removing disinformation on their sites as the November presidential election nears, a stark reversal after the Biden administration for months froze communications with social platforms amid a pending First Amendment case in the Supreme Court, a top senator said Monday.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ve written about this case more than once &mdash; and about the broader <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-first-amendment-on-trial-part-i">&ldquo;censorship industrial complex&rdquo;</a> that&rsquo;s arisen since around 2018. A case called Murthy v. Missouri (previously Missouri v. Biden) is challenging the FBI and other three-letter agencies that &ldquo;flag&rdquo; and &ldquo;report&rdquo; offending posts about COVID jabs and other topics to executives at Facebook, YouTube and so on.
As the case made its way through the courts, it seemed those agencies had backed off. But according to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, the feds have resumed their contacts with Big Tech.
What changed? The Supreme Court heard the case in March &mdash; and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/beyond-blackwell#2">as we chronicled at the time</a>, it appears a majority of the Justices are inclined to give the feds free rein.
As Warner puts it, &ldquo;There seemed to be a lot of sympathy that the government ought to have at least voluntary communications with [the companies].&rdquo;
Yeah, the word voluntary is doing some heavy lifting there.
In any event, expect the Supreme Court to rule in late June.
<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" />A New Supply Chain Snag
<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" /> Beware a summer sriracha shortage&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6gSkHnnx8qumi8cVZJJkDo/71a717ead2a7bf3cb1ef50401dcab463/FoodWineTweet.png" alt="food and wine tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Huy Fong Foods, maker of the sriracha sauce that comes in rooster-adorned, green-capped bottles, says it has halted production until after Labor Day,&rdquo; reports USA Today &mdash; which got its hands on a letter the company sent to wholesale buyers.
&ldquo;After reevaluating our supply of chili, we have determined that it is too green to proceed with production as it is affecting the color of the product,&rdquo; says the letter. And that&rsquo;s not just a cosmetic issue &mdash; it&rsquo;s only after the jalapeno chile peppers turn red that they deliver that tangy sweet heat.
While some corporate media outlets blame the situation on drought in Mexico &mdash; the better to reinforce the CLIMATE CRISIS narrative &mdash; that doesn&rsquo;t account for the fact that Huy Fong&rsquo;s competitors have ample supply.
Turns out Huy Fong had a falling-out with a California supplier a few years ago. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve been hearing third hand that they have tried to enlist new growers so they would have a reliable stream of jalapenos and it sounds like they haven't been entirely successful yet,&rdquo; says Stephanie Walker, co-director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State. (In other news, there&rsquo;s a Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State.)
But for some sriracha aficionados, it&rsquo;s Huy Fong or nothing. And it&rsquo;s the third year running in which the company has had one or another supply disruption. Previous shortages caused &ldquo;widespread panic by frenzied consumers who stockpiled the condiment and swiped bottles from local restaurants,&rdquo; says the New York Post.
<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: &ldquo;For Your Own Good&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 revisiting the matter of Bitcoin ETFs in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/ai-nukes-and-gold#5">yesterday&rsquo;s mailbag,</a> we heard from one of our longtimers&hellip;
&ldquo;Hey Dave, just an FYI &mdash; Merrill Edge will not let customers invest in the new Bitcoin ETFs,
&ldquo;They have about a paragraph long spiel of blah, blah, blah basically stating that they are &lsquo;too speculative&rsquo; when trying to add to my IRA and Roth accounts.&rdquo;
&ldquo;What a racket! Errrrrrr!&rdquo;
Dave responds: If it&rsquo;s any comfort at all, you&rsquo;re not alone.
When the Bitcoin ETFs launched in January, Vanguard refused to offer them &mdash; not in retirement accounts and not even in plain-vanilla brokerage accounts. The ETFs don&rsquo;t belong in &ldquo;a well-balanced, long-term investment portfolio,&rdquo; said a company statement.
As we mentioned at the time, this for-your-own-good attitude is not new with Vanguard &mdash; which stopped offering many leveraged and inverse ETFs in 2019. But competitors naturally seized on the opportunity, Robinhood offering a 1% bonus on brokerage transfers.
Good luck deciding whether the lack of access to Bitcoin ETFs is worth the hassle of moving your account elsewhere!
Have a good weekend,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 bullets hero Charging bull knocking bear down on red and green bar chart showing market on the upside.

shutterstock 316692722

The “pivot” narrative fell apart, but the market did not.

5 BULLETS: Don’t Count out the “Mag 7”

Don’t Count out the “Mag 7”

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />On This Day in History&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" />If you&rsquo;re old enough, you might&rsquo;ve looked at the calendar yesterday and thought Oh yeah, it&rsquo;s V-E Day.
In the first few years after the conclusion of World War II, American schoolkids would gather for assemblies on May 8 to mark the Allied victory in Europe.
In Russia, it&rsquo;s known simply as Victory Day and it&rsquo;s marked on May 9 &mdash; since Nazi Germany&rsquo;s surrender came into effect just after midnight Moscow Time.
And it&rsquo;s still a very big deal, celebrated with a lavish military parade&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4EviRs8I3x6W9VkJkX3xv8/7c976a9f3d8baf658d1ab10a9f9265ed/BRICSTweet.png" alt="BRICS News" width="540px" />
As I wrote on this occasion <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2015/05/06/next-saturday-separates-friends-and-foes/">in 2015</a>, Americans just can&rsquo;t relate to the Russian experience in World War II.
The U.S. dead numbered just over 400,000, about 0.3% of the population. The Soviet dead numbered 27 million, 14% of the population. About 70% of those Soviet deaths were ethnic Russians.
Of every 100 Soviet boys who graduated from high school in 1941, only three came home in 1945.
In recognition of that sacrifice, there was a time &mdash; as recently as the Clinton and Dubya Bush years &mdash; that U.S. presidents would venture to Moscow to join in the commemoration.
<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" /> Obviously those days are over. On Monday the Kremlin announced it will hold drills &ldquo;in the immediate future&rdquo; simulating the use of tactical nuclear weapons against NATO forces.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow essentially has no choice in light of recent statements by Western leaders &mdash; the French president talking about sending ground troops to Ukraine, and the British foreign secretary saying Ukraine is at liberty to use British-supplied weapons to strike inside Russian territory.
As I mentioned <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/90-seconds-to-armageddon">in January</a>, the editors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have their famous &ldquo;Doomsday Clock&rdquo; set at 90 seconds to midnight &mdash; suggesting that we&rsquo;re closer to nuclear Armageddon now than we ever were during the Cold War.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />What&rsquo;s Bad for World Peace Is Great for 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" />It&rsquo;s no coincidence that gold has rallied to record levels at a time of unprecedented nuclear risk, according to Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics authority Jim Rickards.
For the background, we need to rewind to a moment in 1983 when Armageddon was nearly unleashed &mdash; an incident most Americans still don&rsquo;t know about.
At a time when tensions were already sky-high, the United States and its NATO allies conducted a war game code-named Able Archer 83. &ldquo;This war game was to practice a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union,&rdquo; says Jim.
&ldquo;It turned out that the U.S. was rehearsing a nuclear first strike at the same time as the KGB was looking for evidence of a nuclear first strike. Able Archer 83 provided the KGB with more than enough reason to suspect the U.S. was indeed preparing for a first strike under cover of a war game.&rdquo;
At the time, the Soviets relied on a primitive form of AI called VRYAN &mdash; the Russian acronym for Sudden Nuclear Missile Attack.
&ldquo;VRYAN&rsquo;s AI output on relative U.S. strength,&rdquo; Jim says, &ldquo;was compounded by massive U.S. intelligence failures regarding Soviet intentions. U.S. intelligence analysts assumed that the future would resemble the past, and that Soviet alerts were really propaganda designed to halt the U.S. deployment of Pershing II intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe.
&ldquo;U.S. intelligence analysts were also guilty of what&rsquo;s called mirror imaging: the belief that because you know your own intentions, your opponents must share your view. In this case, the U.S. assumed that because they had no intention to launch a first strike, the Soviets must understand that intention and would therefore have no cause for concern. In fact, the Soviets had the opposite view based in part on VRYAN AI output.
<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 world came extremely close to World War III and a nuclear holocaust as a result of this sequence of events and misperception of intentions,&rdquo; says Jim.
It was only because cooler heads prevailed on both sides &mdash; a Soviet lieutenant colonel and an American lieutenant general &mdash; that Armageddon was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83">averted</a>.
To our point today: &ldquo;While there were mutual suspicions and certain inferences by U.S. and Soviet intelligence,&rdquo; Jim says, &ldquo;the information above was not fully understood by either side at the time of the escalation.
&ldquo;On the U.S. side, it was not until the 1990 publication of a study entitled The Soviet War Scare by the President&rsquo;s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) that something like the full story was revealed.&rdquo;
In that document &mdash; originally classified above TOP SECRET &mdash; there&rsquo;s a passage about how the American side assessed the KGB&rsquo;s intelligence collection&hellip;
<blockquote>Throughout the early 1980s, VRYAN requirements were the No. 1 (and urgent) collection priority for Soviet intelligence, and subsequently, some East European services as well. They were tasked to collect&hellip; Monitoring of the flow of money and gold on Wall Street as well as the movement of high-grade jewelry, collections of rare paintings and similar items. (This was regarded as useful geostrategic information.)</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" /> Did you catch the bit about gold in there?
Jim spells it out: &ldquo;Inside a 34-year-old U.S. intelligence assessment of 45-year-old KGB collections in relation to a potential nuclear war is a directive to track the movement of gold as a leading indicator of nuclear attack.&rdquo;
Jim isn&rsquo;t altogether surprised: &ldquo;From 2004&ndash;2010, I was co-director of a CIA effort called Project Prophesy that looked at capital markets activity as an early warning of an enemy attack.
&ldquo;Gold was one of the valuable assets that was on our list of items to track. The idea was that if a general or political leader had advance information about an attack, they would convert their wealth to gold in safekeeping in order to financially survive the fallout&hellip;
&ldquo;Today the world is closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Able Archer scare in 1983. Gold is once again on the move.&rdquo;
Indeed, it&rsquo;s up about 28% in only seven months &mdash; from $1,830 in early October to $2,330 this morning. Every prediction of a pullback the last month or so has come up short.
<a id="3"></a>
&ldquo;Is this a coincidence?&rdquo; Jim asks. &ldquo;Hardly. A close correlation of huge gains in gold with serious threats of nuclear war is exactly what one should expect.&rdquo;
This is one circumstance in which you might wish for the gold price to retreat. Unfortunately with the saber-rattling between Moscow on one side and Washington and Brussels on the other, Jim concludes &ldquo;the rally we&rsquo;ve seen since last October is just getting started.&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" />Copper: Steady Supply, Exploding Demand
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />At $4.42 a pound, copper isn&rsquo;t far from its $5 record in 2022&hellip; and the natural-resource pros at Sprott Inc. believe it has much higher to go.
Feast on this infographic Sprott put out recently (you can click to enlarge&hellip;)

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/pbhYmMcoodsi4bnO41t6d/1b0f95c1e9c23283a50186b37607209b/Sprott.png" alt="sprott" width="450px" />

<a href="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/pbhYmMcoodsi4bnO41t6d/1b0f95c1e9c23283a50186b37607209b/Sprott.png">Click to Enlarge</a>
To be sure, Sprott is &ldquo;talking its book&rdquo; here &mdash; pushing its new Sprott Copper Miners ETF (COPP), launched about two months ago.
Hmmm&hellip; COPP has an expense ratio of 0.65%. Its top holding is the mining giant Freeport-McMoRan, comprising 22.1% of the portfolio. The No. 2 and 3 holdings make up another 20% of the total.
Compare and contrast with the best-known copper ETF &mdash; the Global X Copper Miners ETF (COPX). The expense ratio is identical. COPX&rsquo;s portfolio is less concentrated, the biggest holding making up only 5.5% of the total.
With only two months&rsquo; performance to go on, the two ETFs track each other closely &mdash; with COPP holding a slight edge. We report, you decide. [Disclosure: Your editor has been dollar-cost averaging into COPX since 2021.]
<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" /> Funny this should happen on a day when gold is front-and-center in these 5 Bullets, but precious metals are the most exciting corner of the market today.
The aforementioned $2,330 bid on gold is up more than 22 bucks from late yesterday. And silver&rsquo;s up nearly 3%, back above $28.
Those moves come despite the U.S. dollar holding steady against other major currencies. As we&rsquo;ve mentioned a few times recently &mdash; probably not enough! &mdash; the dollar might be looking strong against the euro, yen, etc.&hellip; but gold is looking strong against everything.
As for stocks, it&rsquo;s a quiet day for the major U.S. averages &mdash; all modestly in the green. The S&amp;P 500 sits just above 5,200.
Crude is quiet at $79.23. Ditto Bitcoin at $62,452.
One economic number of note: First-time unemployment claims for the week gone by totaled 231,000 &mdash; the highest since last August. That&rsquo;s only one week and one indicator &mdash; but combined with the weaker-than-expected April job numbers issued last Friday, it suggests the labor market is tightening ever so slightly.
<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" />Great Moments in Labor Relations
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />I dunno, this doesn&rsquo;t seem like such a hot idea?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2nYEF4NssJFWUioFo8rdmY/a99cca232e374917bde439be8311fe37/SkyNewsTweet.png" alt="sky news tweet" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Air traffic controllers in France have been given the right to turn up to work three hours late after the government abandoned plans to force them to report for work on time,&rdquo; reports the Daily Mail.
In reality, the deal simply affirms what&rsquo;s already standard operating procedure, as the U.K. Express reports&hellip;
<blockquote>The controllers are said to earn up to [$116,000] a year and often only work 75% of the 32 hours a week they are contracted for.</blockquote>
<blockquote>There are claims some actually go on holiday or head off skiing when they are scheduled to be working.</blockquote>
<blockquote>One told Le Parisien newspaper he often checked in with colleagues on how busy air traffic was before he set off for a 9 a.m. shift - and if it was quiet he went back to bed until 11.</blockquote>
<a id="5"></a>
<blockquote>Another said managers didn&rsquo;t mind so long as people were &lsquo;contactable&rsquo; in case of a problem &mdash; but added &lsquo;sometimes we&rsquo;ve found ourselves calling guys who were abroad.&rsquo;</blockquote>
The deal comes after the union threatened to strike just before the Paris Olympics starting in late July. That&rsquo;s bargaining power&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: Bitcoin ETFs
<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;Dave, shortly after the SEC gave its blessing to Bitcoin ETFs, you listed those that you thought were good/bad,&rdquo; a reader writes. &ldquo;Could you please just send me the date you published this in &lsquo;The 5&rsquo;? I file all of them for later reference.
&ldquo;Love &lsquo;The 5,&rsquo; as it will always be to me &mdash; and keep up the great work that you and Emily do.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Just in case others are curious, we&rsquo;ll tackle the question here.
We published a summary of Chris Campbell&rsquo;s analysis in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/you-might-be-an-extremist-feds-say">our Jan. 22 edition</a>; the full list was reserved for paying members of Altucher&rsquo;s Early-Stage Crypto Investor.
The major takeaway: Among the 11 Bitcoin ETFs launching that month, Chris concluded the best in class was the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).
Among the big mainstream names, Fidelity&rsquo;s leadership has demonstrated a long-term commitment to and interest in crypto &mdash; having taken up Bitcoin mining in 2014. And the fees won&rsquo;t cut into your returns too badly; indeed, they&rsquo;re still waived altogether through July. [More disclosure: I took a position in FBTC a few days after publishing Chris&rsquo; analysis.]
Chris believes the ideal way to hold crypto is in a hardware wallet &mdash; but seeing as the IRS doesn&rsquo;t allow that in a 401(k) or an IRA, an ETF is the only choice if you want Bitcoin exposure in your retirement account. Good luck!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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It’s no coincidence that gold has rallied to record levels at a time of unprecedented nuclear risk. 

5 BULLETS: AI, Nukes and Gold

AI, Nukes and Gold

<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" />TikTok Ban &ldquo;Devastating&rdquo; For Small Business
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The impact of the TikTok ban on small online businesses is coming into view&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/16XhRKYImZhfsiXYHr3q4p/110c35ebbc2cb6599f4e4d963608901d/WiredTweet.png" alt="wired tweet" width="540px" />
Maybe you saw the news yesterday: To no one&rsquo;s surprise, TikTok is <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2024/05/07/tiktok-sues-us-government/73600217007/">suing</a> to block <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/tiktok-vs-tv">the law</a> that would either ban the app in the United States or force a sale of TikTok&rsquo;s U.S. operations.
The bill was rushed through Congress so quickly this spring that small-business owners scarcely had time to react or get their voices heard.
<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" /> Now, from across the country, stories abound in local media outlets profiling people who say their livelihoods are at risk.
&ldquo;TikTok is the best social media platform for small businesses without a doubt,&rdquo; says Kimberly Ochsenbein, owner of Akron Lights Candle Company. &ldquo;The viral potential and the expanded reach that you get from TikTok, you can&rsquo;t get that from any other social media platform,&rdquo; she tells the Ohio Capital Journal.
In Georgia, &ldquo;90% of our sales are on TikTok Shop,&rdquo; says Paul Truong, who owns a skincare company with his wife called Love &amp; Pebble. A ban &ldquo;would be catastrophic,&rdquo; he tells the Rough Draft Atlanta site.
In Texas, Jordan Smith owns an online clothing store catering to tall women. &ldquo;It would really devastate me if this platform went away, just because it has been so helpful,&rdquo; she tells KXAN-TV in Austin.
<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 TikTok ban stands to be the second major blow to small online business owners since 2018.
The first was the Supreme Court&rsquo;s Wayfair decision &mdash; forcing online retailers to collect sales tax on behalf of the 45 states that levy a sales tax.
Of course the rates vary from state to state, and so do the items on which sales tax is charged. Yes, there are outside vendors who can help small online businesses navigate the thicket of differing rules&hellip; but it&rsquo;s still a drain on the precious time and money of entrepreneurs.
The TikTok ban is a much bigger burden for those businesses who count on TikTok to get their message out.
True, it&rsquo;s always a risk when your business model relies on a single platform for advertising or publicity or distribution. A few years back, several small e-publishers were instantly wiped out when Facebook changed the algorithm for its &ldquo;news&rdquo; feed.
But there was no government coercion brought to bear in the Facebook instance. There is here.
And for many entrepreneurs, TikTok offers advantages no other platform can: &ldquo;This platform is my primary source of traffic, and it&rsquo;s not for lack of trying on the other sites,&rdquo; says Callie Goodwin, who runs an online card shop in South Carolina.
As she writes in Columbia&rsquo;s newspaper The State, &ldquo;When you think about the 7 million small businesses on TikTok across the country, the extent of that financial impact can&rsquo;t be ignored.&rdquo;
Unless you&rsquo;re one of the 360 representatives and 79 senators who voted for the ban, that is&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" />Shipping Capacity Under Stress
<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 impact of the ongoing harassment of Middle East shipping by Yemen&rsquo;s Houthi faction is now quantified. 
The giant Maersk shipping line issued a new outlook through the end of June&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4t13JUbHRTtzkJeIkLtEbs/d12c11a4b5cbe94dbfe9d5b37cd898d5/IanTweet.png" alt="Ian Tweet" width="540px" />
As Emily mentioned in last Saturday&rsquo;s edition, the trouble has extended from the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean. &ldquo;The risk zone has expanded, and attacks are reaching further offshore," says a Maersk statement to customers &mdash; advising of &ldquo;additional time and costs to get your cargo to its destination for the time being.&rdquo; Fuel costs are up 40%, not to mention overtime for crews and other expenses.
There&rsquo;s no end in sight &mdash; although as I said in January, Joe Biden could put an end to this state of affairs <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/rising-inflation-bombs-away#2">with one phone call</a>, not unlike a phone call Ronald Reagan made in 1982. But few people on either side of the political divide seem interested in entertaining the possibility&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 stock market&rsquo;s May rally is taking a breather today.
At last check, the Dow is up about a quarter percent and the Nasdaq down about the same. The S&amp;P 500 is microscopically in the red at 5,183. Every rally needs a rest before the next leg up.
&ldquo;I was expecting a longer choppy period for stocks following the red-hot start to the year, but clearly the market has other plans,&rdquo; Paradigm trading pro Greg Guenthner told his Trading Desk readers yesterday.
&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t ignore the price action. And right now, it&rsquo;s looking like many stocks are prepared to retest their spring highs.&rdquo;
Precious metals are quiet, gold at $2,318 and silver at $27.40. Crude is little moved after the Energy Department&rsquo;s weekly inventory numbers, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate fetching $78.78.
<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 &ldquo;Big Picture&rdquo; Case for 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" /> The same macroeconomic factors that make gold attractive also make crypto alluring.
Paradigm crypto analyst Chris Campbell made the case recently to readers of Altucher&rsquo;s Early-Stage Crypto Investor. If you already hold precious metals, it should sound eerily familiar.
&ldquo;The current economic environment,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;is characterized by high debt levels, slow growth and a reliance on central bank and government interventions to keep the system functioning.
&ldquo;Global central banks have agreed to use quantitative easing (i.e. expanding their balance sheets) to monetize government debt and keep interest rates low.
&ldquo;Right now, economic growth (GDP growth) is too slow to cover the interest payments on the high levels of debt in the system. The solution? Stimulus, which can come in various forms, such as reducing interest rates, quantitative easing, draining the reverse repo, etc.
&ldquo;While the consequences are currency debasement and rising asset prices (like crypto), the central banks avoid a deflationary collapse under the debt burden.
<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 let&rsquo;s say things don't go that way. What if central banks can&rsquo;t control the deflationary monster?&rdquo; Chris goes on.
&ldquo;In short, debt burdens would increase, with rising defaults and bankruptcies, falling asset prices, rising unemployment and more.
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s STILL a case to be made for crypto.
&ldquo;In a stagflationary or deflationary environment, for example, there would be increased interest in tokenizing real-world assets, such as real estate, commodities or even debt instruments, on blockchain networks.
&ldquo;This would create new investment opportunities and provide alternative financing and liquidity channels for otherwise illiquid assets. Moreover, access to credit through DeFi protocols could become more attractive as traditional lending channels tighten.&rdquo;
Sounds counterintuitive. but crypto and gold could save your bacon in the event of a deflationary depression.
Our macro maven Jim Rickards made the case for gold in such a situation over a decade ago: &ldquo;In that world, I might like my $500 gold better than my $5,000 gold." In other words, gold would still perform the job of preserving purchasing power &mdash; and it would perform that job way better than stocks.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Washington-Wall Street Revolving Door
<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 doesn&rsquo;t get much more incestuous than this: Disgraced Dallas Fed chief Robert Kaplan has landed at Goldman Sachs.
Kaplan was one of two regional Fed presidents who were trading positions in individual stocks at a time the Fed was intervening to halt the COVID crash in March 2020. Both ended up resigning in the fall of 2021.
The Fed&rsquo;s inspector general found only the &ldquo;appearance&rdquo; of a conflict of interest &mdash; huge trades in the likes of Delta Air Lines, Chevron and Apple the very week in March 2020 that Donald Trump was shutting down the economy. Just a bad look, that&rsquo;s all, no insider information or anything.
Kaplan has signed on as vice chairman at Goldman &mdash; coming back through the revolving door, having previously spent more than 20 years with the vampire squid.
Per a Reuters dispatch, &ldquo;Kaplan will give strategic advice to the Wall Street giant's clients globally, working closely with its teams across global banking and markets, and asset and wealth management, the bank said in a statement.&rdquo;
Yeah, I bet he will&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: Trump-Proofing and &ldquo;the&rdquo; Ukraine
<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 topic of &ldquo;Trump-proof&rdquo; regulations we mentioned <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/todays-issue-is-not-about-politics">off the top yesterday</a>, a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;Since the Supreme Court is going to rule on Chevron deference &mdash; where agencies can interpret laws that have revenue impact to their liking without congressional oversight &mdash; would these same agencies involved in &lsquo;Trump-proofing&rsquo; be affected if the SCOTUS ruled that changes must have congressional oversight and approval?&rdquo;
Dave responds: I half-wondered if someone would write in about this.
If you&rsquo;re unfamiliar with the topic, &ldquo;Chevron deference&rdquo; refers to a 1984 case in which the Supreme Court &ldquo;adopted a blanket presumption of deference to statutory interpretations put forth by regulatory agencies in any case where the statute was ambiguous, so long as the interpretation was reasonable,&rdquo; as Peter Suderman writes at Reason.
In other words, for the last 40 years the court has &ldquo;deferred&rdquo; to regulators in one case after another brought by the regulated. The court has taken regulators at their word when they say they&rsquo;re acting within the bounds of the authority granted them by Congress via one law or another.
Without getting any further into the weeds, the court will rule on two relevant cases before the end of June. Chevron deference probably won&rsquo;t be scrapped altogether, but it will be in for significant revision &mdash; affecting rulings on cases that come before the court in the years ahead.
The impact on the &ldquo;Trump-proof&rdquo; regulations that the Biden administration is looking to ram through this month? Hard to say until the court rules.
And as I mentioned yesterday, the Biden administration&rsquo;s &ldquo;Trump-proofing&rdquo; efforts are guarding against what seems like a low-probability event six months out from Election Day &mdash; a Trump win and GOP control in both houses of Congress. At this rate, there&rsquo;s a good chance the Democrats will flip the House and Republicans will flip the Senate&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;Speaking of names,&rdquo; a reader writes as we pivot to our ongoing place-name thread, &ldquo;why is Ukraine no longer called &lsquo;the Ukraine&rsquo;?
&ldquo;Also, I was born in the Bronx: When addressing an envelope, standard operating procedure was to write/print, &lsquo;Bronx, NY Zip code&rsquo;.&rdquo;
Dave: For as badly as Wikipedia has evolved into a deep-state mouthpiece, its take on the question is remarkably neutral&hellip;
<blockquote>In the English-speaking world during most of the 20th century, Ukraine (whether independent or not) was referred to as "the Ukraine." This is because the word ukraina means 'borderland' so the definite article would be natural in the English language; this is similar to Nederlanden, which means 'low lands' and is rendered in English as "the Netherlands." However, since Ukraine's declaration of independence in 1991, this usage has become politicized and is now rarer, and style guides advise against its use.</blockquote>
Nowadays, &ldquo;the Ukraine&rdquo; is mostly a marker of one&rsquo;s age: Boomers still say it out of habit, Xers rarely, millennials not at all&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

5 bullets hero giant army boot trampling on a man

shutterstock 1357110497

The impact of the TikTok ban on small online businesses is coming into view…

5 BULLETS: Small Business Under Threat (Again)

Small Business Under Threat (Again)

<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" />&ldquo;Trump-Proofing&rdquo; Impacts Hundreds of Companies
<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" />Within the last 10 days or so, a new catchphrase has been making its way through Washington, D.C., and Wall Street.
Near as we can tell, its first appearance was about a month ago. But we daresay it was Paradigm Press macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards who made it a thing.
During a podcast interview on April 24, Jim was describing attempts by the Biden administration to undercut the Trump agenda in the event of a Trump victory come November.
&ldquo;This is Trump-proofing,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Against the fact that Trump might win, they will tie his hands in advance.&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" /> Less than two weeks later, the term has made its way to the front page of today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5NxTwvpO3dOWi2Ciyyn6X6/76bcb5e6395dc7f8c72da3d9ceaf4e64/WSJ.png" alt="WSJ" width="540px" />
The article describes &ldquo;a behind-the-scenes scramble&rdquo; by senior Biden aides &ldquo;to Trump-proof as many regulations as they can&hellip;
&ldquo;In April, government agencies finalized nearly three dozen economically significant regulations, more than during any single month of Biden&rsquo;s presidency, according to the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center. New policy announcements from the White House are being rolled out multiple times each week on issues ranging from tighter environmental rules to new restrictions on noncompete agreements.&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" />Before we go any further, a cautionary note if you&rsquo;re a newer reader. We are not taking a political stance here in Bullet No. 1 by tackling this subject matter. 
Rather, we&rsquo;re talking about a phenomenon that could impact the investment prospects of hundreds of publicly traded companies &mdash; for worse or sometimes for better. All we&rsquo;re doing here today is sussing out cause and effect.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />At the heart of the matter is something called the Congressional Review Act of 1996. Without getting too deep in the weeds, this law allows a president to nix regulations issued by his predecessor.
George W. Bush used it once in 2001. No one used it again until Donald Trump used it 16 times in 2017&ndash;18. Joe Biden used it three times in 2021.
To get ahead of the possibility Trump will use it next year, the Biden administration is aiming to cement a host of new regulations into place by the end of this month. Under this 1996 law, acting now rather than later would effectively prevent Trump from undoing those regulations in 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" /> The impact of this month&rsquo;s &ldquo;Trump-proofing&rdquo; push cuts across a host of industries. A short list follows&hellip;
Environmental regulations are the most numerous. &ldquo;The EPA issued four separate regulations to cut pollution from coal and new natural-gas-fired power plants,&rdquo; says the Journal. &ldquo;The rules will force utilities to control emissions of carbon dioxide, mercury and other airborne toxic chemicals, wastewater and coal ash stored in ponds&hellip; The EPA also issued new final clean-water regulations.&rdquo;
Meanwhile airlines will be impacted by a new Department of Transportation rule requiring automatic cash refunds to passengers whose flights are cancelled.
Not all these impacts would be negative to companies&rsquo; bottom lines. The health insurance industry stands to benefit from new rules at Health and Human Services allowing up to 100,000 immigrants access to federal health care subsidies.
Granted, the Congressional Review Act of 1996 comes into play only under unusual circumstances. See, a president can undo his predecessor&rsquo;s regulations only with supporting legislation. So as a practical matter, that can happen only if the same party controls the White House and both houses of Congress &mdash; to wit, the Republicans in early 2001 and 2017 and the Democrats in 2021.
Anyway, that&rsquo;s the story. &ldquo;Trump-proofing&rdquo; is all over the corporate media this week, but it didn&rsquo;t catch on until Jim Rickards uttered it a few days ago on the Steve Bannon podcast. Just one more way our team aims to stay ahead of the curve.
&ldquo;In just the past few weeks,&rdquo; Jim updated his Strategic Intelligence readers yesterday, &ldquo;Biden has finalized 59 rules and proposed 37 others.&rdquo;
All of the Paradigm editors will be on watch for the impact of these rules on the sectors they cover. Stay tuned.
[Editor&rsquo;s note: In the meantime, Jim is keen to introduce you to a one-of-a-kind investment strategy that helps you capitalize on the stock market&rsquo;s ups and downs. It&rsquo;s proven to generate gains of 52% in 4 days... 85% in 6 days... even up to 188% in 2 days.
And you can put this strategy to work every week. Jim invites you to learn more about this investment blueprint from the hedge fund pro who developed it &mdash; <a href="https://signups.dailyreckoning.com/2319522">just follow this link to get started</a>.]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Social Security&rsquo;s &ldquo;Reprieve&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" />According to a new estimate, the Social Security trust fund has more life in it than previously thought: It won&rsquo;t be drained in 2034 after all. It&rsquo;ll be 2035 instead. Hooray?
The new estimate comes from the Social Security program&rsquo;s trustees. The revised outlook comes with the job market holding up better than expected &mdash; thus, more people are paying payroll tax for the time being.
To be clear, 2035 is not the date when the program collapses. But it is the date that all of the program&rsquo;s current surplus will be depleted &mdash; forcing a benefit cut of at least 17%, likely more.
As I&rsquo;ve said for several years now, there&rsquo;s nothing about Social Security that can&rsquo;t be fixed with some combination of higher taxes and a higher retirement age. It would still be a Ponzi scheme in the sense that revenue coming in the door from working-age folks goes out the door instantly to retirement-age folks&hellip; but it would be a sustainable Ponzi scheme for another 50&ndash;75 years.
It says something about the priorities of &ldquo;the uniparty&rdquo; that it can spend $95 billion of money the government doesn&rsquo;t have to help provoke World War III in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan&hellip; but can&rsquo;t come to terms on shoring up Social Security. Oh well.
By the way, the same report says the Medicare trust fund will be drained by 2036. That&rsquo;s an outright fiction: Medicare is already dead-ass broke, with less than half of its revenue coming from payroll tax and premiums paid by beneficiaries. But that&rsquo;s a story for another day&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" /> Assuming you&rsquo;re reliant on the stock market to fund a portion of your retirement, you&rsquo;re marginally better off this morning than you were yesterday.
All the major U.S. indexes are in the green at last check, with the S&amp;P 500 up a quarter of a percent at 5,193.
For perspective, that&rsquo;s about 1.2% below the record close set at the end of March. &ldquo;We haven&rsquo;t reclaimed the all-time high,&rdquo; colleague Sean Ring writes at <a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/rally">today&rsquo;s </a><a href="https://rudeawakening.info/posts/rally">Rude Awakening</a>, &mdash; &ldquo;but that&rsquo;s when we can get excited. Above 5,255, and we&rsquo;re off to 6,000.&rdquo;
Precious metals continue to consolidate, gold at $2,314 and silver at $27.30. Crude trades at $78.25, the lowest since mid-March. Bitcoin sits a shade below $64,000.
<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 Cost of &ldquo;Clean&rdquo; 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" />Folks in Missouri are starting to learn exactly what it will cost to mothball coal-fired electric power plants.
MISO &mdash; the regional grid operator responsible for a large swath of the country stretching from Minnesota south to Louisiana &mdash; recently issued a &ldquo;planning resource auction,&rdquo; spelling out the cost of grid capacity for the year starting June 1.
&ldquo;MISO&rsquo;s auction,&rdquo; according to E&amp;E News, &ldquo;is an indicator of whether there is adequate power supply in specific regions within the grid operator&rsquo;s 15-state footprint. Higher prices are a signal that more capacity is needed.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6NGl8qHAyqkUhNNgUKK1TR/d73976db41f51efe3bfda2a907ef047a/MISOZones.png" alt="MISO Zones" width="540px" />
The headline number is bad enough &mdash; with costs roughly tripling to $30 per megawatt per day next fall and $34.10 in spring 2025.
But that&rsquo;s just the average. In MISO&rsquo;s Zone 5 &mdash; covering a swath of Missouri including St. Louis &mdash; prices will jump from between $10&ndash;15 per megawatt per day to $719.81 &mdash; a 48x increase.
With the retirement of coal-fired power plants, there&rsquo;s just not enough power to serve this area. Thus, supply and demand are doing their thing to price.
Of course, Missouri regulators won&rsquo;t let all of this increase feed through to residential and business customers&hellip; but it&rsquo;s another warning that something&rsquo;s got to give: Coal and nuke plants are being retired&hellip; new solar and wind capacity isn&rsquo;t enough to pick up the slack&hellip; and this is at a time of rising EV usage and AI&rsquo;s insatiable and growing appetite for electricity.
And yes, that affects not only cost but reliability: Later this month the North American Electric Reliability Corporation will issue its &ldquo;Summer Assessment&rdquo; of the U.S. grid&rsquo;s soundness in the event of a big heat wave.
Given the forecasts for &ldquo;above normal&rdquo; temperatures this summer, we&rsquo;re going to watch this one closely. Corporate media will blow off the story, but we&rsquo;ll make sure to bring it your way&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" />Where Nachos Cost $180&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" />Seems it&rsquo;s not just the lower and middle classes experiencing food inflation these days&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1h9fFXM5hs2sHziUptDOEr/4b1342bcd73f8967ca1990d28b8d3980/InverseTweet.png" alt="inverse tweet" width="540px" />
Hard Rock Stadium in Miami was the grandstand site for Formula 1&rsquo;s Miami Grand Prix over the weekend.
The concessions were juuuust a little pricey. As The Sun reports, and as several tweets confirm, nachos went for $180&hellip; a fruit platter for $190&hellip; lobster rolls for $280. The cheapest bottle of white wine went for $190.
OK, yes, this was the VIP section. But as one fan joked, &ldquo;Only Travis Kelce can afford this&rdquo; &mdash; and indeed the Kansas City Chiefs tight end was in attendance.
More than one tweet demanded the Federal Reserve raise interest rates to choke off rampant inflation. Yeah, good luck with that&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: War Is No Joke
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;You made a joke of the war in Ukraine,&rdquo; a reader writes, &ldquo;but tens of thousands of Ukrainians are suffering and dying, sometimes touched in ways hard to imagine.
&ldquo;Please watch <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvAyykRvPBo">this video</a> about one city that was occupied at the beginning of the war and then tell me, or better yet tell them, they are a laughing matter.
&ldquo;I am a new member of Paradigm but I&rsquo;m disappointed by this publication.&rdquo;
Dave responds: We assume you&rsquo;re writing about <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/ukraines-mayday">last Wednesday&rsquo;s edition</a>, but&hellip; where&rsquo;s the joke?
Perhaps there&rsquo;s irony that Kyiv&rsquo;s bar scene is thriving &mdash; but wars have unpredictable ways of altering the flows of money. You&rsquo;re offended we pointed it out?
No, we find no humor in the fact that Western leaders are content to feed young (and, increasingly, middle-aged and old) Ukrainians into a meat grinder in the name of power politics and &ldquo;weakening&rdquo; Russia (the secretary of defense <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-return-embassy-to-ukraine-boost-military-aid-blinken-and-austin-tell-zelensky-in-visit-to-kyiv-11650859391">said that</a>)... or Washington fighting the war &ldquo;to the last Ukrainian&rdquo; (Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham <a href="https://responsiblestatecraft.org/ukraine-war/">said that</a>)... or American leaders viewing the war as &ldquo;a very good bargain&rdquo; for the United States (a State Department official <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/edward_hunt/2023/11/21/the-ukraine-war-has-been-a-great-bargain-for-us-in-the-black-sea/">said that</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" /> Our mailbag thread on the subject of place names continues to have legs&hellip;
&ldquo;Thought it was pretty ironic that a reader chose to mention the song &lsquo;Istanbul (Not Constantinople)&rsquo; &mdash; since the powers-that-be in that land have apparently *just* figured out that the name &lsquo;Turkey&rsquo; has dubious connotations and therefore the country&rsquo;s official name in English shall henceforth be spelled &lsquo;T&uuml;rkiye&rsquo;&hellip; For real?&nbsp;
&ldquo;I mean, English doesn&rsquo;t even use umlauts! But I suspect the name will still be pronounced as before, regardless of the spelling (heh). Just wondering if The 5 will conform to the new guidelines?&rdquo;
Dave responds: In general, we hew to Associated Press guidelines, and as far as the AP is concerned it&rsquo;s still &ldquo;Turkey.&rdquo; Of course, in the present day and age, one must pick and choose <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/associated-press-stylebook_updated-guidance-on-stylebook-online-now-activity-7184176417041973249-Z9Xi">which guidelines</a> to follow most closely.
There is one usage of umlauts in English &mdash; The New Yorker when it uses words like &ldquo;na&iuml;ve&rdquo; or &ldquo;co&ouml;rdinate&rdquo; &mdash; although the magazine&rsquo;s editors insist it&rsquo;s not an umlaut but rather a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-curse-of-the-diaeresis">diaeresis</a>. Can&rsquo;t wait for them to use &ldquo;re&euml;lection&rdquo; this fall&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
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Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

awn-hero-img-03-22-24 Democratic candidate Joe Biden is sharp in the foreground, while Republican candidate Donald Trump is blurred in the background

shutterstock 2401520329

Within the last 10 days or so, a new catchphrase has been making its way through Washington, D.C., and Wall Street.

5 BULLETS: Today’s Issue Is Not About Politics

Today’s Issue Is Not About Politics

<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" />Taking the Sting out of Cancer Diagnosis
<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 I was 20 years old, I got the kind of news that no young person wants to hear&hellip; I had cancer. Hodgkin's lymphoma to be exact,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s science-and-technology expert Ray Blanco, opening up about how he got his start in biotech investing and much more.
&ldquo;Back in the 1990s when I was diagnosed, surviving Hodgkin's lymphoma wasn't even a 50/50 proposition. The treatments were grueling and the odds of beating this disease were stacked against you.
&ldquo;The hair loss, the radiation burns, the relentless nausea &mdash; it was one of the hardest things I've ever gone through,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;If I'm being honest, there were times I didn't think I'd make it.
&ldquo;Fortunately, advancements in medical technology over the years turned my fate around. The radiation and chemotherapy regimens that were still cutting-edge at the time ultimately saved my life.
&ldquo;I'll never forget how fortunate I was to have access to those breakthrough cancer treatments when I did. If I had been diagnosed just 10 years earlier, before those advancements, I may not be here today.
&ldquo;That life-changing experience sparked my obsession with medical breakthroughs and led me to where I am today &mdash; hunting for the next big investment opportunities in health care technology.
&ldquo;And I've never been more excited than I am right now&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;A brand-new technology is emerging out of Silicon Valley that is poised to revolutionize how we treat cancer and so many other diseases,&rdquo; Ray says. &ldquo;I'm talking about artificial intelligence (AI).
&ldquo;Companies are now using advanced forms of AI to discover and develop entirely new drugs at lightning-fast speed,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;This &lsquo;generative AI&rsquo; is able to dream up potential new therapeutic compounds, far faster than any human researcher could.
&ldquo;AI is then used to refine and optimize these computer-generated drug candidates, getting them ready for real-world trials in a fraction of the normal time.
&ldquo;The implications for treating aggressive diseases like cancer are profound,&rdquo; says Ray.
&ldquo;Computer models are able to analyze mountains of data (genetic profiles, scientific studies, patient histories) and find ideal drug targets and candidates that human researchers may have overlooked or given up on.
&ldquo;Already, dozens of drugs discovered and optimized by AI are in clinical trials for all sorts of cancers, rare diseases, autoimmune disorders and more. And the early results look incredibly promising.
<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;Never before have we had a tool as powerful as AI to aid us in humanity&rsquo;s fight against disease,&rdquo; Ray claims. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a game-changer, an inflection point.
&ldquo;Using AI, companies will be able to get new lifesaving drugs into clinical trials at warp speed,&rdquo; he anticipates. &ldquo;The success rates in those trials will soar as AI optimizes trial conditions and targets only those patients predisposed to benefit.
&ldquo;And there's one little AI health care company at the forefront of this revolution that you need to know about today...
&ldquo;This tiny $500 million firm was one of the first to apply advanced AI for drug discovery,&rdquo; says Ray. &ldquo;Its breakthrough software platform is able to take in massive datasets and quickly surface ideal drug targets and candidates.
&ldquo;The AI then takes those candidates through rapid iteration and refinement &mdash; checking for safety, optimizing for efficacy and precision targeting.
&ldquo;Big pharmaceutical giants have already handed this company millions to license access to its AI drug discovery engine. Several early-stage AI-discovered drug candidates are already entering clinical trials for cancers and other diseases.
&ldquo;With a BIG potential payday (in the billions) from future milestone payments and royalties riding on these AI-optimized drugs, this company is truly a speculator's dream,&rdquo; Ray concludes.
[Ray Blanco first recommended Nvidia to his readers when the company traded at just $3.
Anyone who acted on his 2011 recommendation &mdash; and held until today &mdash; made a fortune.
Thirteen years later, Ray recommends a fledgling $6 AI stock &mdash; which might be the smallest AI company we&rsquo;ve ever recommended&hellip; with potential to be bigger than Nvidia.
<a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2319152">Get all the details right here.</a>]
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Buffett Pares Apple
<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" /> Berkshire Hathaway held its annual shareholder meeting on Saturday, and CEO Warren Buffett (sorta) explained why the company sold 13% of its Apple position in Q1. 
&ldquo;We have sold shares and I would say that at the end of the year I would think it extremely likely that Apple is the largest common stock holding we have,&rdquo; said Buffett during the weekend meeting &mdash; the first such meeting, by the way, since the passing of Berkshire Hathaway&rsquo;s longtime Vice Chairman Charlie Munger in November.
&ldquo;One interesting thing is that Charlie and I looked at common stocks or marketable equities or the things that people love to look at as being businesses, and so when we own a Dairy Queen, or we own whatever it may be, we look at it as a business,&rdquo; Buffett said, doubling-down on his <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2018/09/20/investing-like-a-6-year-old/">homespun persona.</a>
&ldquo;When we own Coca-Cola or American Express or Apple, we look at that as a business.&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" /> So Buffett went on to (sorta) confirm: &ldquo;We will own &mdash; unless something really extraordinary happens &mdash; we will own Apple.&rdquo; 
According to Fox Business: &ldquo;The sale resulted in Berkshire realizing an $11.2 billion after-tax gain in the quarter from its sale of Apple stock and contributed to the rise in the company's cash holdings to a record of $189 billion.
&ldquo;[Buffett] also said that given alternatives in the market and uncertainty around the world, holding a larger cash stake is preferable&rdquo; &mdash; which jibes with recent advice from Paradigm&rsquo;s macro expert Jim Rickards.
If Buffett&rsquo;s really looking at Apple&rsquo;s business fundamentals, then perhaps that&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s been guiding Berkshire Hathaway&rsquo;s decision to pare its AAPL position. On Friday, we noted Apple&rsquo;s subpar earnings report; nevertheless, AAPL shares lifted 6.3% on the day because the company authorized a $110 billion share buyback.
Which dovetails with comments from Jim Rickards&rsquo; chief analyst Dan Amoss at Paradigm&rsquo;s editorial Slack channel&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;I reiterate my view that it is destructive to shareholder value for Apple to borrow near 5% and buyback shares that have a 2% or 3% free cash flow yield,&rdquo; Dan says.
&ldquo;That is night and day compared with Apple buybacks around 2016 &mdash; when it had more growth potential, it could borrow near zero and its free cash flow yield was near 10%.
&ldquo;Which stocks fit this description today?&rdquo; Dan posits. &ldquo;Refiners like Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) and exploration-and-production stocks like ConocoPhillips (COP).&rdquo; Plus? &ldquo;A lot of non-sexy names, like distributors, steel, homebuilding, oil and gas, gas stations, auto dealers, auto parts retailers and railroads.
&ldquo;These stocks may not be hares,&rdquo; Dan adds, &ldquo;but like tortoises, they may win the race over five&ndash;10 years &mdash; slow and steady.&rdquo;
Looking at AAPL shares today, they&rsquo;re down about 1%... But the three major stock indexes are all in the green this afternoon. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is leading the way, up 0.70% to 16,270. Meanwhile, the S&amp;P 500 and Dow are up 0.60% and 0.20% respectively.
As for the commodities complex, oil&rsquo;s gained about 0.40% to $78.44 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metals are getting some love: Gold is up 1% to $2,333.20 per ounce, but silver&rsquo;s up 3.5%, firmly above $27.
But the crypto market&rsquo;s churning in the red at the time of writing. Flagship crypto Bitcoin is down 0.75% to $63,450 while Ethereum&rsquo;s down 1.70% to $3,000.
<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" />Uranium Ban: &ldquo;Bullish&rdquo; for 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" />&ldquo;The U.S. relies on Russia to supply uranium for its nuclear industry. It hasn't happened yet, but the Biden administration wants to ban the import of enriched Russian uranium,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s geology-and-mining expert Byron King, adding: &ldquo;That&rsquo;s bullish for uranium stocks.&rdquo;
According to an article at OilPrice.com: &ldquo;Officials from the White House National Security Council, the Department of Energy and other top-level officials have discussed reducing reliance on Russian uranium imports. [The] potential ban could include waivers similar to legislation that quickly passed the House last year.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4GXnTFxNSQpcGCArtqOgU2/abe53e86690d174f92ba8692c1b7b7d0/Uranium.png" alt="Russia's Uranium" width="450px" />

Source: Visual Capitalist
&ldquo;Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States,&rdquo; Visual Capitalist says. &ldquo;In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America&rsquo;s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.&rdquo;
Citing stats from the Congressional Budget Office, a ban on Russian uranium imports could raise costs, at least, 13% or more. Indeed, Jonathan Hinze of nuclear research firm UxC says uranium prices have most likely &ldquo;reached a bottom.&rdquo;
As for stocks, the largest publicly traded uranium company &mdash; Cameco Corp. (CCJ) &mdash; as well as Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC) and Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM) are all getting a boost from a potential WH ban.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />&ldquo;Biden Bucks&rdquo; (Zimbabwe-style)
<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;They gave us no warning. We save and save their useless money and overnight the notes are worthless,&rdquo; says frustrated Zimbabwean Sylvia Dhliwayo
To wit: &ldquo;When Reserve Bank Governor John Mushayavhanu gave Zimbabweans three weeks to exchange their bond notes, they lost what little value they had immediately,&rdquo; the BBC says.
We reported last month Zimbabwe&rsquo;s plan to launch its sixth currency in 16 years, replacing &ldquo;its dollar with the ZiG, short for Zimbabwe Gold,&rdquo; Bloomberg said. &ldquo;The new unit is backed by bullion and foreign currency reserves held at the central bank.&rdquo;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/69YDl9AbWk8yqqKssyZLqR/608383e41ca5ee610a2cd4d3bdee5c90/Zimbabwe-currency2.png" alt="Zimbabwe-currency" width="540px" />

Source: X
&ldquo;Ms. Dhliwayo would use Zigs if there were any to be had,&rdquo; BBC notes, &ldquo;but it mostly exists digitally, and in a place where people can rarely charge their phones because of blackouts, it is cash that counts.&rdquo;
Most business, in fact, is still transacted in USD. Although, due to a shortage of U.S. coins, grocery stores have resorted to giving change in&hellip; lollipops!
So, gee, Zimbabwe has this awesome new gold-backed currency, but no one can use it because it&rsquo;s mainly digital and electricity is unreliable.
No words&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" />Caleb Williams&rsquo; Tax Arbitrage
<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;Regarding Caleb Williams&rsquo; Chicago tax burden, couldn't he reside in Hammond, Indiana, and commute just over 20 miles to Chicago for practices and games? As an Indiana resident wouldn't he pay the Indiana rate?&rdquo;
A reader responds to a mid-NFL-draft issue where we noted QB Caleb Williams will spend $538,956 in state and local taxes for every $10 million he earns playing for the Chicago Bears.
&ldquo;The current Indiana state income tax for 2024 is 3.05%, down from 3.15% in 2023. Hammond, Indiana, also has a county income tax of 1.5%

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/43n2K4dMJNgvHC3WSlKV9l/3db9f279ebcf14e82645f981c1e7cf24/Indiana.png" alt="Indiana" width="540px" />

Courtesy: EnviroForensics Hammond, Indiana: Hmm, not exactly a 22-year-old&rsquo;s dream destination&hellip; 
&ldquo;On top of federal and state and local taxes, NFL players have to pay a &lsquo;jock tax&rsquo; in most states and some cities they play in: They pay a portion of each away-game check to the state and sometimes city they play in.
&ldquo;Depending on what team they play for, and what states/cities their away games are in, NFL players can file as many as 10 tax returns and pay as much as 50% of their salaries and bonuses.
&ldquo;If they get injured or cut, they often don't get compensation (unless it's written into their contract). And they&rsquo;re not eligible for unemployment.
&ldquo;The average NFL career is 3.3 years (running backs under 2.6 years) with an average salary of $860,000. So hopefully they paid attention in school, as it's likely they will need that scholarship education.
&ldquo;They ALL ought to get financial advisers (and I would certainly hire an accountant).
&ldquo;Somehow I think that Caleb will be OK. But then again I have seen quite a few Super Bowl rings in hock shops&hellip; I could certainly live and invest handsomely on what Caleb will be paying in state and local taxes!&rdquo;
Emily: You and me both! 
To answer your question, surprisingly, moving to Hammond would only be negligibly better than residing in Chicago.
Nonetheless, we hope the Heisman Trophy winner gets the counsel he deserves. Seeing as Caleb Williams&rsquo; father Carl is his de facto business manager and agent, well, we&rsquo;ve all seen how mixing family and business can end disastrously. Here&rsquo;s hoping it works out for young Williams.
Come on back for another 5 Bullets tomorrow. Until then, take care!
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 1886230204

“When I was 20 years old, I got the kind of news that no young person wants to hear,” says Paradigm’s biotech expert Ray Blanco. “I had cancer.” 



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