3 Million Acres

Many Paths to the “Birthright”

So much for those plans to sell off 3 million acres of federal lands.

In last Saturday’s edition, we told you about a proposal by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) to do just that.

It’s been one of his causes for many years — selling off certain lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Those two agencies together manage 57% of all the land in Sen. Lee’s Beehive State.

"The federal government owns 640 million acres of land, nearly a third of all land in the United States,” Lee said in an interview with Glenn Beck. “The vast majority of that land has zero recreational value. Disposing of a fraction of 1% of that, so that the next generation can afford a home, is a common-sense solution to a national problem."

Lee tucked a land-sale provision into the Senate version of the “Big Beautiful Bill” — the one that would, among other things, make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent.

Of course, there was opposition: In Oregon, “Conservationists warn it could drastically reshape protected areas like Mount Hood National Forest and Crater Lake,” reported Portland’s KGW-TV.

But it’s all a moot point now: Yesterday the Senate’s rule keeper blocked the inclusion of this plank in the bill.

From Bloomberg Law: “The parliamentarian ruled the proposal — which would have raised billions through the sale of as much as 3 million acres of federal land — is outside of the scope of the fast-track budget process Republicans are using to pass the legislation implementing a $4.2 trillion tax cut.”

Thing is, Lee’s proposal is only one small part of the Trump administration’s plan to tap into the mineral wealth on federal lands, valued at up to $150 trillion.

Much of it can be accomplished without congressional action. And as we’ve been mentioning in recent days, Paradigm’s own Jim Rickards believes the president will take a critical step today.

It’s a step so important that Jim thinks it amounts to Phase II of the plan that he’s dubbed the “American Birthright.”

As Jim sees it, Phase II will create a rush for three companies you’ve probably never heard of. And as our VP of research Aaron Gentzler emailed you earlier today, these companies “don’t mine anything. But every mining company will need them starting today, June 24.”

If that sounds time-sensitive, Jim says it absolutely is. Click here and learn how to get Jim’s Phase II recommendations before it’s too late.

About That Oil Plunge…

Someone made a lot of money yesterday when the Iranian military lobbed a few harmless missiles at the big U.S. air base in Qatar.

After Washington entered the war on the Israeli side Saturday night, and trading opened for a new week on Sunday night, the oil price popped 4% — only to give it all back as Sunday turned to Monday.

Then came word that Iran’s retaliation against U.S. forces was underway — a development that ordinarily would send the price leaping higher again.

Instead the price collapsed 7.2%.

Eventually the world learned not only that Iran’s attack on the U.S. airbase in Qatar was all for show, not for go — but that Tehran gave the Qatari government a heads-up that was quickly relayed to Washington. “I want to thank Iran for giving us early notice,” Donald Trump posted on social media.

Someone must have had inside knowledge that the Iranian attack would be performative — and traded accordingly. We’ll likely never know who.

The market for oil futures has been used to mask a host of manipulations for nearly four decades.

The veteran oil industry journalist Jim Norman documented these manipulations extensively in his 2008 book The Oil Card.

Modern oil futures as we know them began trading in New York in 1983 — only months after President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 66. Under NSDD-66, Washington began colluding with Saudi Arabia to drive down oil prices. Objective: Make Soviet oil exports dirt-cheap and bankrupt the Evil Empire.

One of the leading global oil traders in the 1970s quickly became one of the biggest players in the nascent oil futures market. Transworld Oil, controlled by John Deuss, accounted for up to 30% of NYMEX oil trade — most of it on the short side, betting prices would fall. Deuss had long-rumored ties to the CIA… and it was CIA chief William Casey who did much to implement NSDD-66.

Crude traded around $30 a barrel at the time NYMEX oil futures began trading in 1983. By the late '80s, oil was in a range between $12–22. The Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

More manipulations took place as oil climbed relentlessly during the early 2000s.

The geopolitical objectives had shifted: High oil prices would act as a brake on Chinese economic growth. And the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 would help make it happen. The law "would eventually turn the oil futures market from mainly a zero-sum risk-hedging and price-discovery vehicle into a quasi-securities market," wrote Mr. Norman.

"The price of oil is now less dependent on the actual supply and demand for 'wet' barrels than on the huge sums of money pouring into NYMEX futures from the pension and other investment funds, tacitly enabled and encouraged by U.S. regulators. Daily oil volumes on the NYMEX now dwarf global physical oil consumption."

Indeed, there may be as many as 100 "paper barrels" of oil trading for each barrel of the real thing.

"The volumes are far, far out of whack with any reasonable need to hedge physical supply/demand risk," Norman told your editor during a 2013 interview. "The amount of funds needed to dramatically influence crude prices would be 'chump change' compared with the sums needed in the debt and equity markets."

Did yesterday’s manipulations have an overarching geopolitical goal?

One thing’s for sure: Russia’s Vladimir Putin can’t be happy with crude at $65.14 this morning — back where it was 14 days ago after hitting a peak over $76.

The Cease-Fire Trade

Today’s market action features “the cease-fire trade.”

As usual, we’ll spare you the blow-by-blow that you can read anywhere — the weird terms of the Israel-Iran cease-fire, Donald Trump’s f-bomb reacting to violations of the cease-fire and so on.

We noted oil’s slide moments ago — and the sell-off has spread to the rest of the commodity complex. Gold is down $66 or nearly 2% — barely holding onto the $3,300 level. (The drop would be even steeper were it not for the dollar weakening relative to other major currencies.)

With that, gold now sits at a four-week low. Next stop — the mid-May lows approaching $3,100. Silver’s loss today is nearly as steep, the bid now $35.38 — a three-week low.

The major U.S. stock indexes are staging firm rallies — the S&P 500 up three-quarters of a percent to 6,072. That’s the highest since February. The index is back within 1.2% of its record close that month.

After a weekend slump, Bitcoin is back over $105,000.

“Looks like this war is going to intermission,” tweets the military analyst William Schryver. “Everyone will claim to have won a great victory, lick their wounds and recuperate their forces until the next act begins.”

And yes, there will be a next act…

This much is certain: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still seeks regime change in Iran — and he’ll do whatever he thinks necessary to dragoon Americans into achieving that goal for him.

Power Grid on the Brink

Amid a heat wave this week, large swaths of the country are *this* close to rolling blackouts.

PJM, the regional grid operator serving 65 million customers from New Jersey west to Illinois, has issued a “Level One” energy emergency alert — telling its member utilities to be prepared to run flat-out to meet demand.

The MISO regional grid operator serving much of the Mississippi Valley has issued a similar alert.

For its part, PJM expects demand to hit 160,000 megawatts — the highest since July 2011. “One megawatt can power about 800 homes on a normal day,” says the Reuters newswire, “but much fewer on a hot summer day when homes and businesses crank up their air conditioners.”

As we’re wont to remind you now and then, the capacity of the U.S. power grid is no greater now than it was during that 2011 heat wave. And yet, AI data centers are making prodigious demands on the grid that didn’t exist back then — especially in Virginia’s “Data Center Alley,” which happens to be in PJM’s service area.

The power did go out briefly in New York City for a few thousand customers. Perhaps it’s no coincidence New York Gov. Kathy Hochul just announced a new nuclear power plant.

The location is TBA, somewhere upstate. Supposedly it could power up to 1 million homes.

Last summer, we took note when Hochul said the Empire State would have to go “a little bit slower” to reach the goal of 70% reliance on renewable electricity by 2030. (It’s 29% now).

Clearly, Hochul is now willing to entertain nuclear as a “zero-carbon” option even if it’s not “renewable.”

Gee, maybe New York state leaders should have thought about all of this before they went and shut down the Indian Point nuclear plant in Westchester County four years ago.

Bonus points: This new plant will generate only half of what Indian Point did. And no, there’s no reviving Indian Point, unlike shuttered nuclear plants in Michigan and Pennsylvania: According to The New York Times, “experts say that Indian Point is very likely to be too far along in the process of being dismantled to reopen.”

America First… or a “Cruel Joke”?

Your editor got an earful from readers after yesterday’s edition.

Some of them are newer folk who got the mistaken impression I’m some sort of liberal.

Not at all. I’m an America First guy who wants to bring the troops home. Yesterday. All of them.

You can’t have a small government and a big military. Doesn’t work that way. The Founders understood that — and so did conservatives up until the early 1950s.

But ever since, conservatives have mostly cheered while the military-industrial complex has steadily fattened itself at our expense, hollowing out our prosperity.

One reader had a more specific critique, which follows…

“You must understand that Israel has been helping to preserve Western values (and their very existence) by dismantling Iran’s military complex,” he writes.

“Shame on us Americans if we don’t think we should aid Israel in the endeavor and help ensure Iran does not get nukes. Israel is the Little Satan and the U.S. is the Big Satan and the religious leaders want us eliminated.”

Dave responds: So Israel is standing up for Western values against a vicious cancer on the Eurasian landmass? I seem to recall liberals saying exactly the same thing about plucky little Ukraine three years ago.

I’m sorry, but across an adult lifetime I’ve listened to too many politicians on both sides of the aisle warning me about the next Hitler — Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam again, Muammar Gaddafi, Vladimir Putin, now the ayatollah…

We have too many problems at home to concern ourselves with preserving Israel’s nuclear-weapons monopoly in the Middle East.

A younger generation of MAGA-minded conservatives sees the connection between the steep costs of endless wars and the fact they won’t live lives as prosperous as their boomer elders. That’s why streamers like Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are gaining enormous followings.

The longer Trump stays entangled in the Middle East, the closer he comes to squandering any MAGA legacy.

“Unfortunately, President Trump has severely damaged his credibility by embroiling us in a war that is not our war,” wrote former Rep. Ron Paul this week.

“He would do well to immediately change course, search for off-ramps, make peace with Iran and once and for all banish all neocons and warmongers from anywhere near his administration. Otherwise ‘MAGA’ will go down in history as nothing but a cruel joke.”

“Like you, I’ve been watching the administration’s ‘success’ narrative unfold after this weekend’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities,” writes one of our regulars — “and I can’t help but notice the familiar pattern: bold declarations of victory masking a far murkier reality.

“Trump and his team claim the job is done and peace is at hand — but the geopolitical chessboard tells a different story. The mixed messages are hard to miss. On the one hand, Trump plays a tough guy for the cameras, projecting strength. On the other, beneath the surface, the tangled maneuvering between Putin, Netanyahu, the Saudis and Gulf state players reveals a deeper game — one driven by backroom deals, personal gain, and shifting alliances.

“It’s hard to call this foreign policy when, in reality, it looks more like transactional chaos — a string of short-term wins for headlines while the long-term consequences remain ignored or deliberately obscured.

“I’d be curious to hear your take on how these conflicting interests — Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia — really shape the administration’s choices. Because what’s sold as strategy looks more like opportunism dressed up as diplomacy. Could Trump be looking for another plane to add to his fleet?”

Dave: You’re assuming there’s some sort of underlying logic at work — with this administration or any other.

Seems the answer lies within your own inquiry: There are so many foreign leaders with competing priorities it’s impossible for any president to wheedle, bully and coerce them all into doing what he or she wants.

And so the president, any president, does the only thing he can do — make it up on the fly. You and me, we’re just along for the ride…

Best regards,

Dave Gonigam
Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets