10X

Survey Says…

We asked, you responded.

At the top of yesterday’s edition, we told you about an unusual event we’re conducting next Monday.

We’ll throw the spotlight on a fairly new Paradigm Press editor who lacks the pedigree most of our editors have — but who’s demonstrated beyond any doubt that he can identify stocks with “10-bagger” potential.

The performance of his personal portfolio in the last year proves it — 18 trades that all achieved 10X gains or more. We’ve even taken to calling him Mr. 10X.

Ahead of our event on Monday, we asked you to fill out a brief survey. Between 5 Bullets and various other Paradigm platforms, we got roughly 1,500 responses.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the vast majority told us they had not made a trade within the last year that delivered 10X gains.

But a handful did. Some of them identified MP Materials (MP) — the rare-earth name that zoomed higher after an announcement the Pentagon would take a stake in the firm. We’re pleased to say several Paradigm editors spotted that one for their readers.

Another reader identified Fannie Mae (FNMA) — also flagged by more than one Paradigm editor.

A few identified “Magnificent 7” names like Nvidia and Meta; presumably they were playing options or held their shares longer than 12 months to achieve their 1,000% gain.

But there was another question we asked…

“If you had the secret to hitting 1,000% winner after 1,000% winner… how would that impact your investing and life?”

Here’s where people really opened up about their hopes and dreams.

“It would make a significant impact on my small portfolio,” said a fellow named Brian.

“A lot,” said Valerie. “I live paycheck to paycheck.”

“It would ease my worries regarding retirement,” said Kevin.

“Already retired, so that would be immense,” said Bill.

“Debt relief. Travel. Retirement $$$. Peace of mind,” said Jennifer.

Others figured they’d pay off their mortgage, or give more to charity.

One reader was already thinking ahead to the headaches that come with considerable wealth: “How will I pay taxes on big winners outside of IRAs?”

“Oh my goodness,” said Debbie — “It’d be a miracle in my life and probably turn my life around, making up for the years I’ve sat on the sidelines.”

Every one of us at Paradigm gets jazzed when we see reader input like this. It’s our reason for being. And if our editors have already had a hand in making 10X gains possible with names like MP and FNMA, that’s even better. Our new 10X project is taking it to the next level.

And then consider the final question we included on the survey…

Will you join us this Monday at 11:00 a.m. EDT where you can meet Mr. 10X — and get a FREE copy of “The List,” packed with 30 stocks primed for 1,000% returns?

Follow this link for more details from Publisher Matt Insley and VP of Publishing Doug Hill.

The Consumer Is Bummed

The big economic number of the day suggests the mighty American consumer is starting to crack.

The University of Michigan is out with its reading on consumer sentiment so far in September. The headline number is 55.4 — way below the expectations of Wall Street economists.

The Michigan survey is flawed in many ways. Often it’s just a reflection of how the stock market is doing.

But not now. The major U.S. stock indexes are at or near all-time highs — while consumer sentiment is in the toilet. Look how bad it is on a chart going back over 40 years…

Perhaps the lousy number reflects everyday folks’ ongoing struggles with inflation. The typical survey respondent expects a 4.8% inflation rate over the next year — unchanged from last month.

The Federal Reserve pays close attention to the Michigan inflation-expectation figures when setting policy. But today’s release likely won’t move the needle: Traders in the futures market assign a 95% probability the Fed will cut short-term interest rates next week from 4.5% to 4.25%.

Speaking of the stock market, it’s a mixed bag going into the weekend.

➢ Congratulations are in order for readers of Rickards’ Insider Intel — who just got instructions today to collect a 229% gain from their call options on United Rentals. Very nice for only four months…

The big story in precious metals is that silver is on track for a weekly close over $42 for the first time since 2011. Gold is also in the green, but not as strongly; still it’s within reach of $3,650. Crude is up nearly a buck to $63.27.

In the crypto space, Ethereum has climbed over $4,500 while Bitcoin is back above $115K.

DOGE Dud

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, DOGE hasn’t done a damn thing to reduce federal spending.

Yesterday afternoon the U.S. Treasury issued its monthly statement of income and outflows. Federal spending totaled $689 billion in August, slightly higher than the August 2024 figure of $687 billion — when you’ll recall the Biden administration was spending like mad to ensure Kamala Harris’ election.

Revenue clocked in at $344 billion for August — up 12% from a year earlier, thanks almost entirely to tariffs. Thus the monthly deficit of $345 billion is down 9% from August 2024. Yay?

A similar pattern emerges when you examine the period February–August, encompassing the first seven full months of the Trump administration.

Here again, spending was 3% higher than the previous year under Biden — $4.38 trillion in 2025 versus $4.26 trillion in 2024. But revenue jumped 12% — mostly tariffs, but also individual income taxes — resulting in a 13% shrinkage of the budget deficit.

The end of Uncle Sam’s fiscal year comes at the end of this month, so we’ll have final figures for fiscal 2025 in early to mid-October.

But the pattern is already clear for all to see: DOGE was and is smoke and mirrors.

Meanwhile, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” has managed to make the tax code even more complex and arcane than it already was.

Of course, it was important to prevent the tax brackets enacted in the 2017 Trump tax bill from expiring; if Congress hadn’t acted, everyone would have reverted to Obama-era tax rates. The 2025 bill makes the 2017 brackets permanent.

But in many other respects, the law “fails to reform the tax code’s accumulating complexity, and indeed worsens it in many respects,” write the analysts at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.

One of the blessings of the 2017 tax bill was the generous standard deduction: Before the bill’s passage, nearly one-third of individual filers itemized their deductions on Schedule A. After the bill’s passage, it’s been only about 10%.

That’s a big savings in time and hassle for millions of Americans.

But now that changes with the 2025 bill’s temporary raising of the cap on the SALT deduction for state and local taxes. The Tax Foundation expects the number of filers who itemize to jump by 41% next year. “That means nearly 7 million more people facing longer, more complex returns — adding an estimated $1.7 billion in compliance costs next year alone.”

Other changes will also reduce folks’ tax bills at the cost of more paperwork. The expanded senior deduction, the deductions for overtime and tips, the deduction for interest on certain car loans… all of it adds more red tape.

➢ And the details on some of that red tape are yet to be worked out. For instance, the Treasury Department is still working up the rules on which tipped occupations will qualify for the no-tax-on-tips provision of the bill.

JPM and Epstein: Just Another Partisan Football

“The American people deserve to know what happened at JPMorgan and other banks that financed Mr. Epstein,” says a letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and nine other Democratic senators.

This week The New York Times published what it portrayed as a huge expose of JPM’s relationship with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.

“We combed through more than 13,000 pages of legal and financial records — including sealed depositions and internal bank records — to understand how America’s leading lender enabled the century’s most notorious sexual predator,” the paper boasts.

But none of it was a revelation if you keep up with this e-letter. Over two years ago, we told you about a lawsuit brought by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands against JPM. Among the jaw-dropping allegations that went unnoticed by the mainstream at the time…

• JPM routinely looked the other way when it came to Epstein’s ongoing sexual predation because he kept bringing in a slew of new wealthy clients

• JPM acted as Epstein’s enabler right up until 2019, the year he died in custody — far beyond when JPM supposedly dumped him as a client in 2013

• JPM routinely facilitated large cash withdrawals on Epstein’s behalf — the sort that would get you and me flagged as terrorists or money launderers — even though the bank was well aware Epstein paid off his victims in cash.

Alas, the Virgin Islands settled out of court in September 2023 for $75 million — about 0.18% of JPM’s revenue the previous quarter.

Anyway, the Times rehashed all of this a few days ago — and suddenly it’s got the attention of folks on Capitol Hill.

Well, it’s got the attention of Democrats anyway — which gets us back to the letter we mentioned a few moments ago. It’s addressed to Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the chair of the Senate Banking Committee.

The Dems want JPM CEO Jamie Dimon to testify under oath about what he knew and when he knew it. They also want testimony from execs at Deutsche Bank — where Epstein moved his accounts after JPM cut him loose.

No, we don’t expect any sort of accountability to come from this.

The story has become just one more partisan football this year. Democrats are suddenly keen to hang the scandal on Donald Trump given his own Epstein ties. And for reasons known only to himself, Trump has taken to portraying the entire sordid saga as a “hoax” concocted by Democrats. Most Republicans are taking their cue from him. And so it goes.

➢ To his credit, it seems the late Charlie Kirk broke ranks with Trump on the Epstein story — even speculating at times about the possibility Epstein was an Israeli spy. And speaking of Kirk…

Mailbag: Charlie Kirk

“Copy that!” writes one of our regulars when I mentioned the Kirk shooting has a certain hall-of-mirrors quality. “This culture of political violence and mass shootings is mind-numbing.

“Yet as dreadful and dark as that is, I find myself repeatedly saying ‘have faith.

“I must be getting optimistic in my old age! It takes no effort now to convince myself that God’s got this.

“I figure my job is to keep it real and manage a few details, and maybe light up some of the darkness from time to time.”

Dave responds: Now come the predictable demands to clamp down on speech, the unambiguous language of the First Amendment be damned.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) are leading the charge so far.

“I’m going to use congressional authority and every influence with Big Tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Higgins tweeted yesterday. “I’m going to lean forward in this fight, demanding that Big Tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER.”

For any number of reasons, I’m behind schedule with this year’s edition of the annual 5 Bullets censorship issue — typically something I do in August.

(Last year’s edition is still available in our voluminous archives.)

When I get around to it, I suspect many readers will find it disturbing because it will hold Republicans to the same standard as Democrats.

The Trump administration’s performance on speech “is way worse than anything Biden did,” says the courageous civil liberties litigator Jenin Younes. And she ought to know; she fought Biden’s censorship at the Supreme Court.

(Given her refusal to be pigeonholed politically, Younes is the subject of a shockingly fair profile this week in The Washington Post.)

I will attempt to get the censorship issue done before the end of the month. In the meantime, we’ll leave you today with the words of Charlie Kirk himself — pushing back against the likes of Rep. Higgins.

From a Kirk tweet last spring, after two people were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington: “Speech is not violence. Only violence is.”

Best regards,

Dave Gonigam
Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets