Dear 5 Bullets Reader,
On this low-trading-volume day &ndash; sandwiched between a federal holiday and a weekend &ndash; we&rsquo;re changing things up.
Earlier this spring, I gathered in Washington, D.C. with many of my Paradigm Press colleagues for a conference at the Watergate Hotel &ndash; the &ldquo;scene of the crime&rdquo; that brought down President Richard Nixon 50 years ago this summer.
One morning, I was joined by a video crew in Room 214 &ndash; known to history as &ldquo;the Scandal Room.&rdquo; It&rsquo;s where G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt monitored the progress of the break-in at the attached Watergate office complex on June 17, 1972.
What followed was a &ldquo;confessional&rdquo; of sorts.
I was asked for some candid reflections on camera about the political/social atomsphere then versus now&hellip; censorship of social media&hellip; and corruption in corporate media.
It runs just over 20 minutes. There&rsquo;s nothing here that was scripted. The questions were not given to me in advance. As a result, I surprised even myself with some of the answers!
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One point of clarification: This interview was recorded before <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/supreme-cowards">the Supreme Court&rsquo;s disturbing </a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/supreme-cowards">Murthy v. Missouri </a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/supreme-cowards">decision</a> issued last week.
But if anything, the ruling makes this video even more timely. Click the screenshot above to start watching. And as always, thanks for your time and attention.
Best regards,
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

There’s nothing here that was scripted. The questions were not given to me in advance. As a result, I surprised even myself with some of the answers!

5 BULLETS: Confession Time!

Confession Time!

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Atomic IPO
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />One of our major themes of the last 18 months just intersected with one of our major themes of this week.
&ldquo;Holtec International, a key player in the nuclear industry, plans to go public within several months,&rdquo; reports Barron&rsquo;s.
&ldquo;The IPO would almost certainly be the largest nuclear-energy offering in years, giving investors one of the few pure-play ways of buying into the industry&hellip; The company could be worth more than $10 billion.&rdquo;
Since early 2024 we&rsquo;ve been sounding the alarm in these virtual pages about the enormous demands that AI is making on the U.S. power grid &mdash; a grid whose capacity hasn&rsquo;t grown for over a decade.
To illustrate, Elon Musk posted the following just this morning&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2kqsUPKCAoH9nCkZCx23bf/41fbe12f3b3917a1a136c53464e9e42b/ElonTweet.png" alt="elon tweet" width="540px" />
Result: During a heat wave this week, large swaths of the eastern and central United States were at risk of rolling blackouts. Fortunately, it didn&rsquo;t come to that. This time.
Amid that backdrop, Holtec is in the process of restarting a shuttered nuclear power plant &mdash; a first for the industry. The Palisades plant in southwest Michigan was mothballed in 2022.
Holtec also plans to beef up Palisades&rsquo; capacity with the installation of two SMRs or &ldquo;small modular reactors&rdquo; at the site. (SMRs are still a fledgling technology; none has yet been deployed in the United States.)
If all goes according to plan, Palisades should be up and running again this fall &mdash; a few months before Holtec starts trading publicly in early 2026.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s been a good year for IPOs in the United States. With an asterisk.
As of Wednesday, Bloomberg says the share price of companies that started trading in 2025 are up by a weighted average of 53%.
But hold on: That number&rsquo;s been pulled artificially higher by the blockbuster performance of crypto phenom Circle Internet Group &mdash; spotlighted in this space yesterday &mdash; as well as the cloud computing firm CoreWeave.
And even for the rare exceptions that deliver blockbuster performance, the problem remains for retail investors: The biggest gains, by far, are had before a company goes public.
Unfortunately those gains are limited to investors with deep pockets.
That&rsquo;s a situation that Paradigm&rsquo;s venture capital veteran James Altucher has been out to remedy this week. His contacts have clued him into a rare loophole in the IPO market &mdash; affording everyday folks like you the chance to buy into an up-and-coming quantum computing firm before it goes public.
As you might already know, quantum computing stocks have been on a hot streak at times this year &mdash; leaping as high as 2,798% in just months.
But this isn&rsquo;t just any quantum-computing company. &ldquo;I have reason to believe that every business on Earth will need this company&rsquo;s products,&rdquo; James tells us &mdash; &ldquo;real soon.&rdquo;
Readers of James&rsquo; Microcap Millionaire service already know he plans to buy in next week &mdash; and he&rsquo;s giving them the chance to do so first.

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

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Inflation: Can&rsquo;t Catch a Break
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Uh-oh &mdash; another sign that inflation is moving in the wrong direction.
Earlier this month, the consumer price index from the Labor Department showed that the annual inflation rate inched up from 2.4% to 2.5%.
This morning the Commerce Department delivered &ldquo;core PCE,&rdquo; which is the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s preferred inflation gauge. This too inched up &mdash; from 2.6% to 2.7% &mdash; confounding the expectations of Wall Street economists.
Zooming out, it&rsquo;s apparent that over the last year this particular inflation measure has bottomed out in a range between 2.6&ndash;3.0%. That&rsquo;s nowhere near the Fed&rsquo;s desired 2% inflation target.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4RhKudzwTEUjb56oFNktBl/84306ba96ff951365927ada3584aeae8/6.27_5Bullets_Chart_2.png" alt="chart" width="540px" />
If you&rsquo;ve been with us for the last year or two, this should be no surprise: More than once, we&rsquo;ve pointed to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/declare-your-independence-from-inflation">powerful evidence</a> that once inflation sails beyond 5% &mdash; as it did in 2022 &mdash; it typically takes a decade to return to &ldquo;normal&rdquo; 2% inflation.
How will this number affect the Fed&rsquo;s path on interest rates? Looking at the futures markets this morning, traders are pricing in a 79% probability the Fed will stand pat at its next meeting on July 30 &mdash; keeping the fed funds rate at 4.5%.
If true, the first rate cut of 2025 won&rsquo;t come until mid-September.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> No doubt this development is a disappointment for Mr. Market &mdash; but so far he&rsquo;s taking it in stride today.
At last check, the S&amp;P is up half a percent on the day at 6,174. If that holds by day&rsquo;s end, the index will have surpassed its previous record close four months ago.
The Nasdaq is likewise up about a half percent, the Dow about three-quarters of a percent.
Among the other cross-currents that have traders chattering today &mdash; the possibility Donald Trump will name a replacement for Fed chair Jerome Powell this fall, even though Powell&rsquo;s term isn&rsquo;t up till May 15 next year.
In addition, U.S. and Chinese negotiators have supposedly come to terms on a &ldquo;trade framework&rdquo; &mdash; although the details from both sides are, to say the least, vague.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Mr. Slammy&rdquo; showed up for the precious metals today. The shadowy forces that depress prices every now and then have crushed gold by nearly 2%, the bid down to $3,264.
In addition, silver is losing its grip on the $36 level. And platinum, which hit its highest level since 2014 yesterday, is down 5.5% to $1,341.
Crude is up about 1% as its bounce from oversold levels earlier this week continues. At last check a barrel of West Texas Intermediate was fetching $65.87.
Bitcoin is stuck in the mud at $106,585.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Bonds: An Orderly Race for the Exits
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The speedy whoosh in the bond market is in the rear-view. Now comes the slow-motion sell-off.
In April, amid the market panic surrounding Donald Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; announcement, a funny thing happened: While stocks were selling off hard, so were bonds.
Usually at times like that, scared money floods into bonds as a safe haven. But not then: Bond prices fell hard and yields rose sharply. The yield on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note soared past 4.5%.
It was this panic in the bond market that prompted the president to announce a 90-day pause on his tariff regime. (Those 90 days are up on July 8, by the way.)
The mainstream was quick to chalk up the bond market panic to a lack of confidence in Trump&rsquo;s tariff policy. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-real-reason-for-the-tariff-pause">But as we said at the time</a>, there was more to it than that.
There was Joe Biden&rsquo;s radical step of freezing the U.S. Treasuries held by Russia&rsquo;s central bank. And there was the lingering unease with Uncle Sam&rsquo;s debt burden &mdash; already steep going into the 2020 pandemic, and growing at an even faster pace since.
The initial bond-market panic in April has eased. The yield on a 10-year Treasury today is 4.27%.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But that doesn&rsquo;t mean confidence in Uncle Sam&rsquo;s debt has returned: &ldquo;Investors are fleeing long-term U.S. bond funds at the swiftest rate since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic five years ago,&rdquo; says the Financial Times &mdash; &ldquo;as America&rsquo;s soaring debt load tarnishes the appeal of one of the world&rsquo;s most important markets.&rdquo;
From early 2022 through early 2025, long-term bond funds took in about $20 billion every quarter. But during the second quarter of this year, $11 billion has fled these funds.
It&rsquo;s not a panic &mdash; more like an orderly race for the exits.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1RadhujsTDNE0z8tsiD4C6/9a604721db33b2819aad155f7bced4cd/6.27_5Bullets_Chart.png" alt="chart 2" width="540px" />
Bond funds are only a slender portion of the enormous bond market &mdash; but they&rsquo;re a valuable snapshot of the market vibe.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a symptom of a much bigger problem,&rdquo; DoubleLine Capital&rsquo;s Bill Campbell tells the FT. &ldquo;There is a lot of concern domestically and from the foreign investor community about owning the long end of the Treasury curve.&rdquo;
Those jitters have only grown as the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill&rdquo; takes shape in Washington. (The Senate might vote on its version of the bill as early as today.) Now that the promised budget savings from DOGE have turned out to be a bust, the bill is likely to accelerate the national debt&rsquo;s growth trajectory.
The Trump administration insists its policies will in fact slow the growth of Uncle Sam&rsquo;s debt load &mdash; but we&rsquo;ve heard those promises from Republican administrations before and they never pan out. (That&rsquo;s not to let spendthrift Democrats off the hook, to be clear.)
The stakes couldn&rsquo;t be higher: Shrinking demand for U.S. Treasury debt translates over time to higher interest rates &mdash; which makes the government&rsquo;s debt burden only worse.
Imagine taking on new credit card debt just to keep up the minimum payments on your existing debt.
That&rsquo;s bad for a household. It&rsquo;s way worse for a country&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief (and Some Myth-Busting)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />For whatever reason, this tweet from last year is making the rounds now &mdash; and people are taking it seriously.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4kuFKW9yYrGc8xSvbqXBdd/14e739608d81f7b07ee9eb7d307e2748/TheClimate.png" alt="the climate" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Who&rsquo;s gonna tell him?&rdquo; says a post this week on the alt-right social media platform Gab. And there&rsquo;s more where that came from.
Looking at the account of the individual behind this tweet, it&rsquo;s definitely satire. The account is run by a Canadian who routinely skewers the climate-obsessed control freaks and power trippers in his country and elsewhere. Now you know&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Politics and Investing
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> We heard from another reader after our inquiry on Wednesday: Have you ever let your politics drive your investing decisions? 
&ldquo;Thanks to turmoil/volatility created by the current administration the &lsquo;playtime&rsquo; part of my portfolio has increased 5x, mostly via put options. About to pay off the five-year car loan I signed up for last December. Not happy but making bank.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Sounds like it. Interesting contrast with the fellow yesterday who sold California municipal bonds and bought shares of the Big Oil firm Chevron. He&rsquo;s happy too.
Probably not the last we&rsquo;re going to hear of this theme &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/its-a-rigged-game#4">the growing partisan divide</a> reflected in attitudes toward future stock market performance. It&rsquo;s been interesting exploring it this week.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> All of which brings up a paradox for our firm and many of our readers.
It&rsquo;s safe to say, based on our various marketing campaigns of the last several years, that the overwhelming majority of Jim Rickards&rsquo; readers lean Republican.
Which means, if the Gallup polling data is accurate, that they&rsquo;re by and large optimistic about the stock market&rsquo;s near-term prospects because a Republican occupies the White House.
Of course, Jim is not optimistic about the stock market&rsquo;s near-term prospects.
Yes, he&rsquo;s keen on Individual names tied to <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2454619">his &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; thesis</a>. But the broad market dominated by the Magnificent 7? Not so much.
So if you&rsquo;re having trouble squaring that circle, let me try to help.
Jim spent a long time on Wall Street &mdash; long enough to be completely jaded by Wall Street firms&rsquo; relentless pressure on their clients to buy stocks. That&rsquo;s just how he rolls.
Even before he joined our firm, I remember sitting in a Vancouver hotel conference room in 2013 watching him describe his preferred asset mix &mdash; gold, cash, land, fine art, private equity.
Notice that stocks are absent. Unlike most entry-level newsletters, there&rsquo;s no portfolio on the back page of Strategic Intelligence, and there never has been.
Jim is always on alert for something to go wrong in the stock market because it is inextricably linked to the banks and the financial system. You would be too if you had a front-row seat to the near-calamity that was the collapse of Long Term Capital Management in 1998. It&rsquo;s a lived experience and a worldview that commands a loyal following.
Do we have other experts in our stable who disagree with Jim&rsquo;s outlook? Absolutely.
We don&rsquo;t enforce a &ldquo;company line&rdquo; around here. True to our name, we ask only that our editors bring a rigorous paradigm to their work &mdash; a model of how the markets and the economy operate.
They don&rsquo;t have to agree &mdash; as anyone who&rsquo;s witnessed one of our rollicking Whiskey Bar panel discussions can attest &mdash; but they have to have a systematic outlook and the ability to defend it.
That&rsquo;s how they can build a following &mdash; and we can maintain a sustainable business.
It&rsquo;s not easy &mdash; but with informed and engaged readers, it&rsquo;s more than worthwhile!
Have a good weekend,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

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

Atomic IPO

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Circle Gets the Square
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Circle Internet Group (CRCL), the company behind the USDC stablecoin, just pulled off one of the most explosive IPOs in decades. 
On June 5, 2025, the company priced its IPO at $31 per share, then watched as shares more than doubled on their first day of trading, soaring as high as $103.75 at one point before closing at $83.23 &mdash; a 168% pop above the IPO price
The next day, the stock jumped another 30% to close at $107.70, and demand hasn&rsquo;t let up since. At latest check, shares have surged over 600% from the IPO price. A meteoric rise by any metric.
<ul>
<li>Jay Ritter, a leading IPO expert, confirmed that Circle&rsquo;s two-day moonshot was the biggest for any major IPO since 1980. That&rsquo;s the kind of windfall most retail investors only dream about.</li>
</ul>
It&rsquo;s not every day a company comes out of nowhere and shakes up Wall Street and crypto in one fell swoop. But that&rsquo;s exactly what Circle did &mdash; and if you blinked, you might have missed it.
What&rsquo;s fueling this frenzy? Circle is at the center of the fast-growing stablecoin market, with USDC now the seventh-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, pegged at about $61 billion.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Circle now stands alongside Coinbase as one of the few pure-play crypto firms to list in the U.S., and its success is seen as a bellwether for the entire sector.
The IPO itself was a blockbuster. Clearly, the appetite for digital assets and fintech is back&mdash;and it&rsquo;s stronger than ever. Circle&rsquo;s vision, according to CEO Jeremy Allaire, is to &ldquo;create a new financial infrastructure based on the internet that could fundamentally transform the use of money.&rdquo;
But this isn&rsquo;t just about Circle. The company&rsquo;s success is a signal. According to Lynn Martin, president of the NYSE Group: &ldquo;I see the Circle IPO as a bellwether for the IPO markets this year, not just for crypto listings.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Which brings us to an important point: If you&rsquo;re a regular investor, you probably missed out on the &ldquo;ground floor&rdquo; opportunity. The real winners in this story were the insiders and big-money investors who got in before the IPO.
By the time shares hit the open market, the price had already rocketed. That&rsquo;s the reality of the IPO game &mdash; the biggest gains are reserved for those who get in early, before the company goes public.
So what&rsquo;s next? Circle&rsquo;s story is a reminder that the best opportunities often come before the headlines. If you want a shot at the next big thing, you need to be in the know &mdash; and sometimes, you need to act before the rest of the world catches on.

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

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />A Market Memo: &ldquo;Headlines Fade&rdquo; 
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;If you turn on the mainstream media right now, the Israel/Iran conflict is dominating the headlines,&rdquo; says editor Davis Wilson at our sister e-letter The Million MIssion. 
For instance, when the story first hit the news cycle: &ldquo;Oil prices spiked. The S&amp;P 500 pulled back. And naturally, people [asked]: Is this the start of something bigger? 
&ldquo;However, we&rsquo;ve seen this playbook before,&rdquo; Davis notes. &ldquo;It starts with breaking news: a drone strike, a missile launch, a shocking assassination. Oil rallies. Defense stocks surge. Broader equities pull back as headlines scream about escalation and global instability.
&ldquo;But zoom out,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and the pattern becomes clear: These dips have consistently turned into buying opportunities.&rdquo; Here&rsquo;s a sketch of a few major geopolitical events from the past decade&hellip;
<ol>
<li>Russia invades Crimea (2014): &ldquo;Russia&rsquo;s annexation of Crimea in early 2014 was met with global outrage,&rdquo; David notes. &ldquo;Sanctions were imposed. Markets dipped. But the S&amp;P 500? It was down briefly in March, then went on to finish the year up over 11%. Investors who bought the fear were rewarded within months&rdquo;</li>
<li>U.S.-China trade war (2018&ndash;2019): &ldquo;While not a kinetic conflict, the trade war was a geopolitical standoff with real economic consequences. Tariffs were slapped on billions in goods. Markets dropped several times on tweets alone. But the trade war didn&rsquo;t break the bull market,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;it merely created volatility within a broader uptrend&rdquo;</li>
<li>Russia invades Ukraine (2022): &ldquo;This was the biggest geopolitical shock since 9/11,&rdquo; Davis emphasizes. &ldquo;Markets initially dropped &mdash; especially European and global names. But by the end of 2022, U.S. stocks had largely priced in the new reality. Energy prices spiked and then fell back. Defense stocks rallied. The S&amp;P 500 found its footing and moved on.&rdquo;</li>
</ol>
Not to mention multiple &ldquo;periods of heightened conflict in the Middle East [often] cause brief market wobbles, especially in energy,&rdquo; says Davis. &ldquo;But they rarely create lasting damage to U.S. equities. Unless oil prices remain elevated for months (which is rare), these are noise in the long run.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;So why does the market keep bouncing back?&rdquo; Davis posits: &ldquo;Three reasons&hellip;
&ldquo;Markets price in worst-case scenarios quickly,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;When geopolitical news breaks, traders often assume escalation. But once the situation de-escalates (or fails to spiral) stocks rebound as uncertainty fades.&rdquo;
Next: &ldquo;U.S. companies are resilient. Most geopolitical issues don&rsquo;t directly affect corporate earnings. Even during oil shocks or military conflicts, consumer spending and business operations often go untouched.&rdquo;
Last: &ldquo;&lsquo;Buy the dip&rsquo; is embedded. Investors have been rewarded for 15 years for stepping in on weakness.&rdquo;
Davis&rsquo; key takeaway: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t panic. Don&rsquo;t chase headlines. Watch sentiment &mdash; not news anchors. If geopolitical tensions rise and stocks dip sharply, that&rsquo;s often the setup for a sharp rebound.
&ldquo;Avoid piling into defense stocks after they&rsquo;ve run. Instead, buy what&rsquo;s unfairly punished: the high-quality stocks I highlight &mdash; Nvidia, Meta, Uber &mdash; not because they&rsquo;re immune to news cycles, but because they rebound the fastest when the fear fades.
&ldquo;Remember: Fear drives short-term volatility. Fundamentals drive long-term gains.&rdquo; Davis advises: &ldquo;Stay calm. Stay patient. And when others panic &mdash; get ready to strike.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Taking a look at my screen this afternoon: The Big Board is up 0.80% to 43,320. As for the other two major U.S. indexes, the techie Nasdaq is up 0.70% to 20,110 while the S&amp;P 500 is up 0.65% to 6,130.
Turning to the commodities complex, the price of oil is up 1.50% to $65.90 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metal? Gold&rsquo;s barely hanging out in the green territory: up 0.10% to $3,346.40 per ounce. But silver&rsquo;s up 1.60% to $36.58.
The crypto market&rsquo;s hit a speedbump today: Bitcoin&rsquo;s down 0.40% to $107,320, but Ethereum&rsquo;s taking a breather at $2,430.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />DeFi: Code, Crypto and Clarity
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;In the 1990s, the U.S. government classified encryption &mdash; or &lsquo;crypto&rsquo; &mdash; as a weapon,&rdquo; says James Altucher&rsquo;s chief analyst Chris Campbell. &ldquo;If you were writing strong encryption code &mdash; PGP, RSA &mdash; you were, legally speaking, an arms dealer,&rdquo; he adds.
&ldquo;It was America&rsquo;s first crypto war,&rdquo; says Chris. &ldquo;At its core was one question: Is code speech? The people building encryption said yes. The government said no.
&ldquo;The turning point was the Bernstein v. U.S. Department of Justice case (1995&ndash;1999) &mdash; a landmark legal battle that established code as protected speech under the First Amendment.
&ldquo;Fast-forward 30 years and we saw crypto wars 2.0,&rdquo; Chris notes. DeFi platforms were investigated, and Coinbase, for example, was threatened regularly. Even self-custody was under attack.
&ldquo;That was the Gary Gensler era,&rdquo; says Chris. &ldquo;Gensler didn&rsquo;t believe in clarity. He believed in ambiguity. Not because he was stupid. But because ambiguity is a tool. If nobody knows the rules, everyone&rsquo;s guilty.&rdquo;
But that all changed this month&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The SEC&rsquo;s &ldquo;DeFi and the American Spirit&rdquo; roundtable was &ldquo;the most important crypto discussion to ever take place in America,&rdquo; Chris emphasizes.
&ldquo;SEC Chairman Paul Atkins said it plainly: &lsquo;DeFi is as American as apple pie.&rsquo; He said self-custody is a right. He said code is speech. He said your constitutional freedoms don&rsquo;t vanish when you log on to the internet.
&ldquo;He even floated an &lsquo;innovation exemption,&rsquo;&rdquo; Chris continues, &ldquo;a fast-track for blockchain projects that play by some basic rules but don&rsquo;t want to die in paperwork hell.
&ldquo;For the first time publicly, the SEC acknowledged:
<ul>
<li>Bitcoin mining is not a security (already assumed, now confirmed)</li>
<li>Staking is also not a security, including staking-as-a-service.</li>
</ul>
[FYI: Staking is the process of locking up cryptocurrency in a blockchain network to help validate transactions and earn rewards, while staking-as-a-service allows users to delegate their tokens to a third party that handles the technical requirements of staking on their behalf.]
&ldquo;This clears a major cloud over Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and basically all major blockchains,&rdquo; Chris says.
&ldquo;Crypto is finally on track to get what we&rsquo;ve needed all along: clarity. Staking clarity. Token clarity. Self-custody protection. And actual, written laws &mdash; so builders can stop looking over their shoulder and start shipping code.
&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t bullish. It&rsquo;s nuclear&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;But how do we find the real hidden gems? Here&rsquo;s one strategy James and I are using right now,&rdquo; says Chris.
&ldquo;First, don&rsquo;t follow the noise. Follow the fees,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;The real plays right now aren&rsquo;t the ones trending on Twitter &mdash; they&rsquo;re the ones printing cash in the background.
&ldquo;They&rsquo;re small, often overlooked, but they&rsquo;re raking in millions in protocol revenue from trading, lending, staking and stablecoin systems.
&ldquo;And the kicker: A lot of that revenue is flowing directly back to token holders. Real yield. Not inflation.
&ldquo;To find the real under-the-radar plays,&rdquo; Chris concludes, &ldquo;look for rising usage, sticky users and weird new niches &mdash; like tokenized yield or DeFi-native forex &mdash; that the big names haven&rsquo;t fully claimed.
&ldquo;If you can catch these before they go mainstream, you&rsquo;re not just early. You&rsquo;re ahead of the curve, while everyone else is still trying to figure out what&rsquo;s happening.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Why Millionaires Feel &ldquo;Meh&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Forget caviar and Champagne &mdash; millionaires are living downright ho-hum lives these days. 
The world now boasts about 52 million &ldquo;everyday&rdquo; millionaires, folks with between $1&ndash;5 million in net worth, according to a recent UBS report. That&rsquo;s four times more than in 2000. (Adjusting for inflation? The number of millionaires has more than doubled.)
In the U.S. alone, new millionaires are being minted at a rate of about 1,000 per day. The country is home to nearly 24 million millionaires, accounting for about 40% of the global total &mdash; four times more than runner-up China.
But here&rsquo;s the twist: Most of these folks don&rsquo;t feel rich. &ldquo;Millionaires are no longer Monopoly caricatures,&rdquo; says Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s shifted to encompass a very large portion of the population.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4BdwhuHRDNgdeTJqgZ2LQV/ea4ff445ac961d3faa5c02a9e6832a99/hotdogs.png" alt="hotdog" width="540px" />
Much of this wealth surge comes from soaring home prices and an aging population. A record 39.3% of Americans own their homes outright, and over half of these are at retirement age.
Boomers, in particular, have benefited from tax perks like the mortgage-interest deduction and tax-free 401(k) contributions.
Yet many U.S. millionaires are surprised to learn about their status. &ldquo;I know we&rsquo;re technically &lsquo;millionaires&rsquo; with our home equity but it isn&rsquo;t really helpful for monthly expenses,&rdquo; says Alisha Ard, a stay-at-home mom in Ventura County, California, where the median home costs more than $800,000.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s honestly hard to describe how incredibly pedestrian and normal our lives are,&rdquo; says Glen Czaplewski of Denver, echoing a common sentiment among this new class of millionaires.
&ldquo;Everyone is a lot better off,&rdquo; Donovan notes, &ldquo;but relatively speaking, people don&rsquo;t necessarily feel that.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Speaking of &ldquo;Meh&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;When Trump won the election, I sold California muni bonds, put 90% into &lsquo;drill baby drill&rsquo; Chevron and 10% into Barrick Gold; dividend reinvest on both. Happy, happy,&rdquo; responds an optimistic contributor to our question yesterday: To what extent do you let politics drive your investing decisions?
Emily: Thank you to the one reader who responded&hellip; Where is everyone? Enjoying an afternoon siesta? Summer vacay?
Nonetheless, our reader&rsquo;s response reflects the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/its-a-rigged-game#4">partisan gap</a> in market optimism we mentioned yesterday &mdash; now the widest gap ever recorded, with Republicans far more bullish than Democrats
As Dave mentioned, investors are increasingly letting politics guide their choices. But beware, write Neil Howe and associate Christian Ford at the Demography Unplugged Substack page&hellip;
&ldquo;According to Bespoke Investment Group, $1,000 invested only during Republican presidencies since 1953 would be worth about $29,000 today,&rdquo; versus $60,000 if invested only during Democratic presidencies &mdash; but $1,000 left invested continuously would have grown to $1.9 million.
This suggests that a disciplined, long-term strategy beats betting on political outcomes.
That seems to be the prevailing sentiment in these 5 Bullets&hellip; Until next time, take care!
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/emily-clancy.png" alt="Emily Clancy" width="250px" align="left" />
Emily Clancy Associate editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

1980

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


Not Since 1980… 

Poker

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

It’s a Rigged Game

Minerals0624

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

3 Million Acres

<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" />Gold Resilient
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The market reaction to Washington&rsquo;s entry into the Israel-Iran war on the side of Israel began&hellip; quietly. Too quietly.
The reaction in stocks&hellip; bonds&hellip; commodities&hellip; the dollar&hellip; all muted. The price of crude spiked 4% when trading opened for the week last night, only to give it all up.
Gold is up $15 as we write to $3,383 &mdash; a very modest move, especially by recent standards.
In a dispatch to a select group of his subscribers on Friday, Paradigm&rsquo;s macro maven Jim Rickards passed along a chart from the Financial Times.
&ldquo;What do you think is the highest-performing major asset this year so far?&rdquo; he asked rhetorically. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s gold!&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4d2XFUrOU4D03MzKKw47aO/f491bea620584e5f62c8d92084f68676/GoldChart.png" alt="gold chart" width="540px" />
Gold&rsquo;s jump in the first half of 2025 reflects what was already a world full of uncertainty going into this past weekend.
&ldquo;Relax if you don't own gold yet,&rdquo; Jim advises. &ldquo;This rally is just getting started. Central banks are the big buyers. The retail frenzy stage is still $5,000 away. So there is still time to get involved if it suits you.
&ldquo;Remember &mdash; I recommend 10% allocation to gold in your portfolio but higher or lower percentages have a place depending on risk tolerance. So season to taste.&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" /> Lately, gold mining stocks have been outperforming the metal itself. 
The gold price has moved sideways for the last two months. Meanwhile, the HUI index of mining stocks jumped 10.3% during the same time span. This outperformance continues today &mdash; gold up a third of a percent while the HUI is up 1.6%.
Individual names in the sector have exploded far higher than that during 2025. Year-to-date, Helius Minerals grew 509%... Goldgroup Mining has done even better, rising 523%... while BCM Resources leaped 660%.
Little-known names like these are already moving partly in response to the Trump administration&rsquo;s plans to tap the vast mineral bounty lying beneath federal lands, valued at up to $150 trillion. Those plans lie at the heart of Jim&rsquo;s &ldquo;American Birthright&rdquo; thesis.
That said, Jim believes the real mining boom &ldquo;hasn&rsquo;t even started yet.&rdquo;
As readers of Jim&rsquo;s Situation Report already know, Jim believes Donald Trump will make a decisive move tomorrow. &ldquo;And when this event unfolds, it will unleash Phase II of the American Birthright.&rdquo;
See, when natural-resource stocks go on a tear, the most lucrative gains usually come during Phase II.
<a id="2"></a>
Jim&rsquo;s seen it more than once during his career: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m talking about gains that could be 10X&hellip; 20X&hellip; and I&rsquo;m not kidding, even 100X bigger&rdquo; than the examples we just cited.
Readers of The Situation Report are already clued in to three specific investments Jim believes will generate those Phase II gains &mdash; starting when the president makes his move tomorrow. If you&rsquo;re not among them, <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2452715">you can follow this link and Jim will start getting you up to speed</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" />Make IRAN Great 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" />Seems an awful lot of Orwell references are flying around the interwebz the last 48 hours&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3vQLPBqVhiOB52uBm4Zwj0/64c06f95ef157eeddfbd34747e872932/SeanTweet.png" alt="sean tweet" width="540px" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5Z6RAzxG13TfoNKY3O6B51/933a1c33f864dbd51231fe19b08a0b1f/MichaelTweet06-23.png" alt="michael tweet" width="540px" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/vWLqTaKfQZOLxyeA2YUlL/9457ad252fd40144a4d7a23c2a3fc47a/Iran.png" alt="iran" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Then again, maybe Kafka is more appropriate? 
After the U.S. airstrikes on Saturday night, the president said Iran&rsquo;s nuclear program was &ldquo;completely and totally obliterated.&rdquo;
Which sounds like the objectives of the airstrikes were met. War&rsquo;s over before it began, right?
But then he also said Iran &ldquo;must now make peace.&rdquo; And he didn&rsquo;t lay out what he envisioned as the terms of a peace.
On the Sunday morning talk show circuit, Vice President Vance went out of his way to say &ldquo;we&rsquo;re not at war with Iran, we&rsquo;re at war with Iran&rsquo;s nuclear program.&rdquo;
But if the program has been &ldquo;completely and totally obliterated&rdquo;... war&rsquo;s over before it began, right?
Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth both emphasized that Washington&rsquo;s issue is with Iran&rsquo;s nuclear program and the objective is not &ldquo;regime change.&rdquo;
And then the president beclowned both of them late in the afternoon&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5G0uPs9SdEF4ypUY7yxCSK/efe28e40795337c29b6a9f990f51cf1e/TrumpTweet-06-23.png" alt="trump tweet" width="540px" />
Wow.
Does it seem to you as if America is great again (MAGA)? Or healthy again (MAHA)?
No? Well, too bad, so sad. Donald Trump has bigger fish to fry than your well-being, peasant.
What&rsquo;s old is new again: &ldquo;To wage war on Iran,&rdquo; writes the independent journalist Aaron Mate, &ldquo;Trump and his allies have employed the traditional Iraq WMD playbook of ignoring or manipulating the available evidence to fear-monger about a foreign state marked for regime change.&rdquo;
However, there are a couple of new twists&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;Unlike the Iraq war, where the fraudulent case for invading was mostly concocted in-house, Trump has outsourced the job to Israel, while not even pretending to care about public opinion or congressional approval,&rdquo; Mate continues.
There&rsquo;s a lot to unpack in that one sentence.
We said <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/can-russia-halt-trumps-war#2">in Friday&rsquo;s edition</a> it seemed the White House put more stock in the assessment of Israel&rsquo;s Mossad intelligence agency than of its own intelligence services.
That impression has since been confirmed by independent reporters, both left- and right-leaning.
At the leftist Grayzone site, the fearless husband-and-wife team of Max Blumenthal and Anya Parampil report: &ldquo;An official in the administration of President Donald Trump has told The Grayzone that CIA Director John Ratcliffe and U.S. CENTCOM Commander Gen. Michael Kurilla have become vehicles for Israel&rsquo;s Mossad and military as they seek to manipulate the U.S. into attacking Iran. The Trump official referred to Ratcliffe as &lsquo;Mossad&rsquo;s stenographer.&rsquo;
&ldquo;According to the official, Ratcliffe and Kurilla have pressured Trump to join Israel&rsquo;s war more directly by regurgitating overblown briefings they received from the Israeli military and Mossad director David Barnea &mdash; but without informing the president that the intelligence was derived from a foreign third party.&rdquo;
Concurs Sean Davis at the conservative Federalist site: &ldquo;I have also been told by current and former senior national security officials that CIA claims about Iran&rsquo;s nuclear progress come directly from Mossad &mdash; &lsquo;verbatim talking points&rsquo; was one phrase I heard &mdash; and don&rsquo;t include U.S. intelligence on the matter.&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" /> Meanwhile, the American people and their representatives in Congress just don&rsquo;t count.
This isn&rsquo;t the first time a U.S. president has cut out Congress from having any say in a major military campaign &mdash; not even a mealymouthed &ldquo;resolution&rdquo; or &ldquo;authorization.&rdquo; Barack Obama did the same with Libya &mdash; a regime-change op, we&rsquo;ll remind you &mdash; in 2011.
Trump apologists who objected to an American air campaign last week are justifying it this week by making the excuse that no ground troops are involved. &ldquo;One and done,&rdquo; tweeted former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida). &ldquo;Trump the Peacemaker!&rdquo;
Whatever you need to say to feel better about yourself, dude&hellip;
As for the public, this much is clear: It&rsquo;s not 2001 or 2003 anymore.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3HCpJmZTgpZ5c7yPtCVq8b/57aa1a595cc055ce189db9dd2eeb3f66/PollingUSA.png" alt="polling usa" width="540px" />
We conclude this foray into Orwell (and/or Kafka) with an observation from historian and author Stephen Wertheim. Apparently we&rsquo;re supposed to believe that Iran&rsquo;s leaders are so crazy that they&rsquo;d try to nuke a nuclear-armed Israel&hellip; but also so rational that they won&rsquo;t retaliate against American targets after an American bombing.
Which brings us to whatever&rsquo;s next&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Blockade the Strait of Hormuz?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Understandably there&rsquo;s much buzz about whether Tehran will move to blockade the Strait of Hormuz &mdash; the slender waterway through which about 20% of global oil trade moves.
Iran&rsquo;s parliament voted yesterday in favor, but the final decision lies with the country&rsquo;s supreme national security council.
Yesterday Secretary of State Marco Rubio pleaded with Beijing to lean on Tehran to prevent that outcome. "I encourage the Chinese government in Beijing to call them [Iran] about that, because they heavily depend on the Strait of Hormuz for their oil."
Someone needs to inform Rubio of what we mentioned three weeks ago: A rail line just opened for business linking China to Iran by way of four other countries.
No, it can&rsquo;t fully substitute for China&rsquo;s seaborne oil imports from Iran: The line runs through several of the central Asian &ldquo;stan&rdquo; countries &mdash; &ldquo;prone to instability, conflict and terrorism,&rdquo; says the South China Morning Post. Also, not all of the tracks are the same width &mdash; which adds up to &ldquo;time-consuming and expensive cargo transfers.&rdquo;
Still, all told, Iran accounts for about 7% of China&rsquo;s oil consumption. China can probably handle the hit from a closure of the Strait.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As the day wears on, the Iranian military has lobbed missiles at the giant U.S. airbase in Qatar.
Qatar&rsquo;s defense ministry says there&rsquo;ve been no injuries. The oil price has tumbled 4.4% from Friday&rsquo;s levels &mdash; back to $70.59 at last check.
At this time, the narrative seems to be that Tehran sought to stage a performative retaliation that didn&rsquo;t really put anyone at risk &mdash; much as it did in early 2020 after Trump ordered the drone assassination of Gen. Qasem Soleimani.
By the same token the major U.S. stock indexes are all in the green &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 up two-thirds of a percent and back over 6,000.
Gold is holding onto its modest gains; silver is outperforming, up 20 cents and back over $36.
We daresay the story isn&rsquo;t over yet. As Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute tweets, &ldquo;Israel will continue to strike Iran and vice versa, and as long as that is the case, the Israelis will continue to put relentless pressure on Trump to join the war in various ways.&rdquo;
The bottom line is what I&rsquo;ve said more than once this month: However many hedges against geopolitical risk you hold in your portfolio, it&rsquo;s probably not enough.
That means oil, gold, silver, copper, uranium &mdash; tangible wealth and the companies that produce it.
<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" />Grim Chuckle
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 meme-o-verse has obliged with a visual representation of what your editor was describing earlier&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5DU7ks7U5XulAmTEDFfgop/5e09561f11de324d9e9331c4aba3b141/Comic-trump-iran.png" alt="comic trump iran" width="540px" />
<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: MAGA Betrayal
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 an expanded war loomed Friday &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/can-russia-halt-trumps-war">we cited</a> the legendary journalist Seymour Hersh as saying Washington would enter the fray over the weekend &mdash; a reader wrote in&hellip;
&ldquo;One is reminded of the quote, attributed to Emma Goldman, as Trump&rsquo;s betrayal of his MAGA voters seems nigh: &lsquo;If voting changed anything, they would make it illegal.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Dave responds: Key word there is &ldquo;attributed.&rdquo; We did the research on the eve of the 2020 election and as near as we can tell, neither Emma Goldman nor Mark Twain ever said it.
Doesn&rsquo;t make it any less true. Or as the economist and podcaster Tom Woods is wont to quip: No matter who you vote for, you always end up with John McCain.
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

Iran

Does it seem to you as if America is great again (MAGA)? Or healthy again (MAHA)? How priorities have changed only five months into the Trump 47 term.

Make IRAN Great 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" />Can Russia Halt Trump&rsquo;s War?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />OK, so Donald Trump did not formally enter the Israel-Iran war on the side of Israel yesterday. It&rsquo;s looking more like this weekend.
When we left you on Wednesday ahead of the Juneteenth holiday, we anticipated a high risk that U.S. airstrikes would begin while the markets were closed. That&rsquo;s how it&rsquo;s gone several times in the last couple of years with U.S. military action in the Middle East.
Instead, the president made headlines yesterday with a prepared statement saying, &ldquo;Based on the fact that there is a substantial chance of negotiations that may or may not take place in the near future, I will make my decision of whether or not to go within the next two weeks.&rdquo;
A lot of people misinterpreted the statement and said there&rsquo;s now a two-week pause.
Not so: &ldquo;Within the next two weeks&rdquo; means anytime inside that two-week span. He could give up on the prospect of negotiations&hellip; today.
Around the same time the White House released that statement, the legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported a U.S. attack will come &ldquo;as early as this weekend.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I have been told that the White House has signed off on an all-out bombing campaign in Iran,&rdquo; he wrote, &ldquo;but the ultimate targets, the centrifuges buried at least 80 meters below the surface at Fordow, will, as of this writing, not be struck until the weekend.
&ldquo;The delay has come at Trump&rsquo;s insistence because the president wants the shock of the bombing to be diminished as much as possible by the opening of Wall Street trading on Monday.&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" />If there&rsquo;s any chance of heading off U.S. entry into the war at this late stage, it&rsquo;s up to Moscow.
You read that right: &ldquo;The key to settling the war in Iran lies in Ukraine,&rdquo; Jim Rickards wrote his Strategic Intelligence readers this week.
&ldquo;Russian President Putin spoke with President Trump last Saturday. Putin offered Trump a kind of off-ramp for U.S. involvement in Iran. If the U.S. and Russia can reach a rapprochement on Ukraine that satisfies Putin, then Russia would be able exert pressure on Iran to satisfy the U.S. (and, by extension, Israel). That approach opens the door to stopping two wars at once &mdash; Ukraine and Iran.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />This proposition isn&rsquo;t as far-fetched as you might think. Earlier this month, Russia&rsquo;s deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov offered his country&rsquo;s help &ldquo;through the export of excess nuclear material produced by Iran and its subsequent adaptation to the production of fuel for reactors.&rdquo;
In other words, Iran&rsquo;s uranium would be shipped to Russia, enriched in Russia to levels far below that required for a weapon, and shipped back to Iran. Actually, Russia has extended this offer from time to time as far back as 2009.
Too, Russia is one of the few countries on mostly friendly terms with both Iran and Israel.
But the odds of success are admittedly slim &mdash; and the window of opportunity is closing fast.
<a id="2"></a>
&ldquo;Trump is smart but he&rsquo;s surrounded by neocon warmongers,&rdquo; says Jim. &ldquo;If Trump takes the Russian off-ramp, two wars may be resolved quickly. If not, both wars will continue indefinitely with a material risk of escalation to the point of a nuclear war that would end human life on Earth.
&ldquo;Putin opened the door. The next move is up to Trump.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Talks? What Talks?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As was the case Wednesday, markets are on tenterhooks waiting for whatever&rsquo;s the next shoe to drop.
We&rsquo;ll get to the numbers shortly &mdash; but first, more on the state of play going into the weekend.
We&rsquo;re not sure what the president considers a &ldquo;substantial chance&rdquo; of new talks &mdash; but it sure seems as if he&rsquo;s already given up on them.
After all, the previous round of negotiations turned out to be a ruse engineered in Washington and Tel Aviv &mdash; designed to keep Tehran off-guard while the Israeli military prepared its attack.
And once the attack was underway last Friday, one of the first Israeli targets was Ali Shamkhani &mdash; a senior adviser to the ayatollah and perhaps the Iranian official most eager to come to terms with Washington.
Put yourself in the mullahs&rsquo; shoes for a moment: How likely would you be to start new talks under those circumstances?
Oh, and just for old times&rsquo; sake&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6sRGXWCvOYngp0nRjNdHUt/48e08d50ae7e982c71158a91f05c14b8/djt_tweet.png" alt="DJT Tweet" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Whatever happens, it&rsquo;s now clear the president has no compunctions about throwing the non-interventionist wing of MAGA under the bus.
It&rsquo;s not just labeling Tucker Carlson as &ldquo;kooky&rdquo; the other day. There&rsquo;s also this&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2ZIiPEyRj1rfDSuCzRNcbm/07178787d51bb5c8b3ad78b9167efd5c/djt-tweet-2.png" alt="DJT Tweet 2" width="400px" />
If the name isn&rsquo;t familiar, Marc Thiessen was the speechwriter for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the time of the Iraq War &mdash; and later the speechwriter for George W. Bush.
In other words, he was one of the worst propagandists for the &ldquo;forever wars&rdquo; Trump denounced on the campaign trail.
This is the guy Trump is citing favorably now, even invoking the &ldquo;isolationist&rdquo; smear.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-wars-we-never-get-into" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A week ago today</a> I quoted Mollie Hemingway from The Federalist: Escalation against Iran, she said, &ldquo;would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal by millions of American voters. It would cost him real polling support that would be permanent.&rdquo;
And yet, Trump just dissed them in a way that&rsquo;s even more insulting than calling Tucker Carlson &ldquo;kooky.&rdquo;
The reaction on social media has been equally savage&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1dJ8O6pwhLLA0RYxcoVwIs/d1a235927c0208e2688fb6b598f4bbc2/trump-bush-meme.png" alt="trumpbush" width="350px" />
Speaking of historical parallels&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&rsquo;m so old, I remember when Germany gave the U.S. &lsquo;airtight&rsquo; intel from a source named Curveball that Saddam Hussein had WMD and was moving it around Iraq in mobile units,&rdquo; tweets the aforementioned Mollie Hemingway.
&ldquo;Let&rsquo;s be very clear,&rdquo; said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt yesterday: &ldquo;Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon. All they need is a decision from the supreme leader to do that and it would take a couple weeks to complete the production of that weapon.&rdquo;
As The New York Times points out (yeah, I know, just hang with me here), &ldquo;Some American officials said those new assessments echoed material provided by Mossad, Israel&rsquo;s intelligence agency, which believes that Iran can achieve a nuclear weapon in 15 days.&rdquo;
It seems the White House puts more stock in the assessment of Mossad than of its own intelligence community.
&ldquo;The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003,&rdquo; Trump&rsquo;s Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate committee in March.
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t care what she said,&rdquo; Trump told reporters on Air Force One this week. &ldquo;I think they were very close to having one.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;What they had all along is a latent nuclear deterrent,&rdquo; explained the Libertarian Institute&rsquo;s Scott Horton in a recent interview on the NewsNation network.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the same as Germany, Japan or Brazil, where they had shown they perfected the fuel cycle, they know how to make nuclear weapons fuel, but they&rsquo;re not making it.&rdquo;
Of course, now that Iran is under attack from Israel, &ldquo;they&rsquo;re actually more likely to pursue nuclear weapons now, whereas before they actually were not pursuing them.&rdquo;
Yep &mdash; and not to launch against anyone, but rather as the ultimate insurance against regime change (which the Israelis are already clear is their objective).
Hey, it&rsquo;s worked for the Kim family in North Korea. They&rsquo;ve had nukes for 20 years now &mdash; not an ideal situation, for sure, but we&rsquo;re all still here.
More important from their standpoint, they&rsquo;re still here.
<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" /> Silver Smacked
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 that said, if U.S. entry into the war is imminent, the precious metals markets weren&rsquo;t sniffing it out last night&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7EhfETPGRqCELbwShtFEp9/ee0835c43e073408467e9d66b6e32692/mouse-tweet.png" alt="mouse tweet" />
Silver posted a weekly close last Friday over $36 for the first time since 2012. Then it sailed past $37 earlier this week.
But this morning the bid is down 51 cents or 1.4% &mdash; back below $36.
This is one of those Fridays when options on the precious metals expire. Beat-downs on these days are not unusual. That said, gold is holding up better than silver today &mdash; down less than five bucks at $3,367.
<a id="4"></a>As for stocks, it&rsquo;s a &ldquo;quadruple witching&rdquo; day. That&rsquo;s when four types of derivatives expire all at once &mdash; stock options, stock futures, index options and index futures.
Strange things can happen on these days, but there&rsquo;s nothing showing up in the major averages so far today. The S&amp;P 500 is down less than a quarter-percent at 5,970.
That means there&rsquo;s still time to act on our Mason Sexton&rsquo;s guidance ahead of what he sees as a 30&ndash;40% drop in the market in the months ahead. Based on the techniques he&rsquo;s refined over a 40-plus-year career, he believes today is the first day of the window in which that drop can begin.
Not surprisingly amid the war drums, crude is set to end the week over $75 for the first time since January.
Bitcoin is stuck in neutral, a little over $104,000.
<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" />This Is Getting Ridiculous (Social Security)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Social Security is fixable &mdash; assuming there&rsquo;s any will in Washington to fix it.
This week the trustees of the Social Security system issued their annual update about how much time remains before the Social Security trust fund is depleted.
They say the portion of the fund devoted to retirement benefits will likely run out in 2033. The combined trust fund including disability insurance would be exhausted in 2034. Beyond that point, the system would be funded only by incoming FICA taxes &mdash; and benefits would have to be cut by up to 23%.
For anyone paying attention to these matters, this drop-dead date isn&rsquo;t alarming. It&rsquo;s oscillated between 2033&ndash;2035 for over a decade.
And yet, the politicians have taken no action since 2015.
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 &mdash; and that&rsquo;s problematic on any number of levels &mdash; but it could be made a sustainable Ponzi scheme for another 50&ndash;75 years.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Major Social Security reforms tend to come when there&rsquo;s a president of one party and the House of Representatives is controlled by the other party &mdash; so that no single party takes the political heat.
A huge overhaul came in 1983 under President Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Thomas &ldquo;Tip&rdquo; O&rsquo;Neill. Smaller tweaks also occurred under &ldquo;divided government&rdquo; in 2000 and 2015.
But there&rsquo;s been nothing since. We had divided government again in 2019&ndash;2020 and 2023&ndash;2024&hellip; but no progress on Social Security. The atmosphere in Washington has become too toxic. And there&rsquo;s no way the Republicans are going to take it all upon themselves this year or next.
But none of that alters the fact the clock&rsquo;s still ticking&hellip;
➢ Worth noting: The parlous state of the Social Security trust fund is one reason that Social Security benefits are still subject to income tax under the &ldquo;Big Beautiful Bill&rdquo; in Washington &mdash; Donald Trump&rsquo;s campaign promises notwithstanding. Instead, the bill features a senior tax credit &mdash; which would expire after Trump&rsquo;s term is over.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />A Final Thought
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Deadline approaches and there&rsquo;s only time to pull up an oldie but a goodie &mdash; albeit with new relevance&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6ezCyTkEoa6vQGwwiwKEOp/6bf241f4a5e4f5d9f0bb4c1d69825eeb/epstein_meme.png" alt="Epstein meme" width="350px" />

fmf-putin-hero

If there’s any chance of heading off U.S. entry into the Israel-Iran war at this late stage, it’s up to Moscow. Yes, you read that right.

Can Russia Halt Trump’s War?

<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;Summer of Hell&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" /> As the day winds down, the markets face a pregnant pause &mdash; trading closes tomorrow for Juneteenth, reopening Friday. In between, U.S. forces might become fully engaged in a hot war.
We&rsquo;re coming to you a bit later than usual in the afternoon because Paradigm contributor Mason Sexton just wrapped up the Summer 2025 edition of <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2451775">his presentation called </a><a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2451775">The Prophecy</a>.
A &ldquo;summer of hell&rdquo; he&rsquo;s expecting for the markets. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s a chance stocks could drop 10&ndash;15% &mdash; &ldquo;in a matter of days!&rdquo; he says. And up to 30% additional downside after that.
It could all start as early as Friday.

If you want to see his rationale, <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2451775">we encourage you to click here and watch a replay of the event right away</a>.

<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s sticking in your editor&rsquo;s mind this afternoon &mdash; something that haunts me from when Mr. Sexton did his spring edition of The Prophecy in March.
Then too he was expecting a steep downdraft in the market &mdash; which is exactly what happened in early April.
The catalyst turned out to be the president&rsquo;s &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; tariff announcement. But as Mason explained at the time, the market was primed for a fall and the catalyst could have been anything. One day I mused over the myriad possibilities. One of those possibilities was&hellip;
&hellip; Donald Trump unleashing the U.S. military on Iran.
I cited the independent journalist Ken Klippenstein: &ldquo;President Trump&rsquo;s menu of options for dealing with Tehran now includes one he didn&rsquo;t have in his first term,&rdquo; he wrote: &ldquo;full-scale war&hellip;
&ldquo;While a range of military options are often provided to presidents in a passive-aggressive attempt on the part of the Pentagon to steer them to the one favored by the brass, Trump already has shown his proclivity to select the most provocative option.&rdquo;
Klippenstein said even nuclear weapons are on the table &mdash; according to &ldquo;a retired senior military officer who has been briefed on the planning.&rdquo;
Escalation to nukes would happen one of two ways: &ldquo;One, with the CENTCOM commander &lsquo;requesting&rsquo; the use of nuclear weapons, mostly to stave off Iranian conventional military success; and two, in a &lsquo;top down&rsquo; order, that is, by the president, mostly as a &lsquo;demonstration&rsquo; to &lsquo;signal&rsquo; to Iran.&rdquo;
And here we are, three months later.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Again, we&rsquo;re entering a delicate window with the holiday tomorrow. 
More than once over the last couple of years, major U.S. military action in the Middle East has come while markets are closed. The pattern is too frequent to write off to chance. Last year, U.S. forces launched airstrikes against &ldquo;Iran-linked&rdquo; targets in Iraq and Syria literally the instant the market closed at 4:00 p.m. Eastern on a Friday.

Moments ago during The Prophecy, Mason said <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2451775">there&rsquo;s still time to take protective measures</a> in your portfolio &mdash; but not much. By the time the market reopens on Friday morning, it could be too late.
Of course, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2451775">We invite you to watch the replay of </a><a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2451775">The Prophecy </a><a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2451775">right away</a> and decide for yourself.

<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" />The Thing About &ldquo;Unconditional Surrender&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />And so the markets are on tenterhooks awaiting the next big development &mdash; more likely from Washington than from the war zone itself.
&ldquo;Nobody knows what I&rsquo;m going to do,&rdquo; the president told reporters this morning.
Which is not exactly new &mdash; on this matter or any other &mdash; but the present moment is more serious than whether Lower Slobbovia will be subject to 10% tariffs or 20%.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 retrospect, it&rsquo;s a fair question whether Donald Trump was goaded into threatening hot war because of all the TACO talk.
In case you hadn&rsquo;t heard, over the past few weeks there was increasing chatter on both Wall Street and social media about &ldquo;TACO&rdquo; &mdash; short for &ldquo;Trump always chickens out.&rdquo;
At first, it was applied to the on-again, off-again tariffs. But soon, leading Democrats picked up on it to needle the president about&hellip; negotiating with Iran.
Here&rsquo;s the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, 16 days ago&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/39PfWsk95F4r0beJgz7uEL/f96d6bb697b3de9b503e05bf190df24c/ChuckTweet.png" alt="chuck tweet" width="540px" />
<blockquote>➢ Program note: Paradigm Publisher Matt Insley had the lowdown on this MAGA rift in <a href="https://newsyoucanacton.com/posts/tucker-trump-and-magas-rift">this morning&rsquo;s edition of </a><a href="https://newsyoucanacton.com/posts/tucker-trump-and-magas-rift">The Rundown</a>, and The Daily Reckoning&rsquo;s Adam Sharp will also take on the topic later this afternoon.</blockquote>
As you&rsquo;re likely aware, a series of increasingly manic social media posts by the president climaxed yesterday with a demand for &ldquo;UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER&rdquo; from Tehran.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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;Unconditional surrenders are so rare they are almost unheard of,&rdquo; wrote Richard Maybury more than two decades ago
Maybury is one of the graybeards of the financial newsletter biz &mdash; and a veteran of Washington&rsquo;s dirty wars in Central America during the 1960s. The following is gleaned from his 2002 book World War II: The Rest of the Story and How It Affects You Today.
&ldquo;In an unconditional surrender, the losers are required to lay down their arms with no guarantees at all. They must simply put their fate in the hands of the winners, and the winners can do anything they please, including hang them.&rdquo;
President Franklin Roosevelt demanded unconditional surrender of Germany on Jan. 24, 1943.
At the time, the Nazis were on their heels &mdash; only a week away from getting totally curb-stomped by the Soviets at Stalingrad.
But FDR&rsquo;s demand steeled the Germans&rsquo; resolve.
&ldquo;The effect of this brutal formula on the German nation, and above all on the army, was great,&rdquo; German Gen. Heinz Guderian wrote in his 1951 memoir Panzer Leader. &ldquo;The soldiers, at least, were convinced from now on our enemies had decided on the utter destruction of Germany.&rdquo;
On the flip side, unconditional surrender devastated the enthusiasm of the German underground: One of its members, Gen. Franz Halder, lamented he could no longer attract new recruits. As he put it, even Hitler&rsquo;s fiercest opponents understood that &ldquo;the same frightful fate awaited us with or without Hitler&hellip; The only thing to do was hold out until the end.&rdquo;
The war dragged on for two more years &mdash; with more than one million dead per month.
Something to think about at a time the War Party is once again invoking Nazi analogies to whip up public support for a regime-change op. (So far, <a href="https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/poll-americans-support-talks-with-iran-oppose-involvement-in-israels-war/">it&rsquo;s not working</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" />Standing Pat
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Amid a gathering World War III storm, a Federal Reserve meeting seems positively anticlimactic.
To no one&rsquo;s surprise, the Fed opted to keep the benchmark fed funds rate at 4.5% &mdash; where it&rsquo;s sat for the last six months.
The Fed&rsquo;s statement characterized unemployment as &ldquo;low&rdquo; and inflation as &ldquo;somewhat elevated&rdquo; &ndash; which suggests Fed&rsquo;s focus is still more on inflation than on the job market. That&rsquo;s exactly what Paradigm&rsquo;s Jim Rickards has been anticipating for weeks now.
As was the case in March, Fed officials still project they&rsquo;ll cut the fed funds rate twice before year-end &mdash; just not yet. Not surprising if the Fed now projects 3% inflation for 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 S&amp;P 500 has been oscillating around the 6,000 level in the aftermath of the Fed decision this afternoon &ndash; little higher than yesterday&rsquo;s close. The gains in the Dow and the Nasdaq are likewise modest.
Gold is little moved at $3,380. The bigger mover is silver, back below $37 in a much-needed consolidation.
Copper is steady at $4.79 a pound &ndash; nowhere near the March highs over $5.30 but attractive enough for copper thieves who pulled some internet fiber cables in Southern California. They knocked out service to big swaths of Los Angeles and Ventura counties last weekend.
Crude&rsquo;s movement is muted by the standard of recent days &ndash; up 48 cents to $75.32. Still, that&rsquo;s the highest since late February.
The crypto market appears unimpressed by the passage of landmark legislation in the Senate yesterday &ndash; perhaps because passage in the House might take a few more weeks. (We&rsquo;ll have much more on the implications of this crypto legislation in the days ahead.) Bitcoin is back below $104,000 after making a run toward $109k only two days ago.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />It&rsquo;s a heavy issue of our 5 Bullets today. We need a respite &mdash; if only long enough to behold a meme lamenting dozens of obnoxious business buzzwords&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1UgzV1aKxh1KYHJxS9wsyM/e6677a4bb6ce018c7bc6a70bfa302393/Comic.png" alt="comic relief" width="540px" />
The great thing about working for Paradigm Press is that I almost never hear any of them! We&rsquo;re too busy trying to make happy customers.
Speaking of which, we heard from two in the inbox this morning&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" />Readers Old and New Sound Off
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Having lived retired for two decades out of the U.S., 5 Mins. and 5 Bullets was my primary source for US and world economic news,&rdquo; writes a longtime reader.
&ldquo;Now that I have returned to live in California for a few years, it continues to be my most reliable and enjoyable news source. As soon as possible I will be moving to Arizona, because of favorable facts that I have learned about taxes, politics, and grid reliability there from reading 5 Bullets. Having once lived in Santurce and worked in Hato Rey [Puerto Rico], I find that I also prefer warm weather and Latin friendliness.&rdquo;
Addressing Emily after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/bigger-than-israel-iran">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>, he adds, &ldquo;I much enjoy the softer style that shows in your articles, contrasting so well with the sharp insights from Dave. I intend to continue reading 5 Bullets for the rest of my days.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Hi Dave, thank you for supplying the link to the options information, which I read and understood,&rdquo; writes a reader we heard from last week looking for beginner&rsquo;s guidance on options trading.
(We have just the thing for that &mdash; <a href="https://concierge.paradigmpressgroup.com/post/paradigm-press-presents-the-ultimate-beginners-guide-to-stock-options">The Ultimate Beginner&rsquo;s Guide to Stock Options</a>.)
&ldquo;It was sooo much easier to follow than the article that Schwab insisted I read before applying for options access - my eyes glazed over! But hopefully they will approve me, so that I can get away from merely buying stock.
&ldquo;Having said that I did want to give feedback that the shares I bought/sold/rebought actually made me a 93% profit. Nowhere near the percentage others were making on options, but hey, I was pleased with the result. I also put $5k into the five cryptos James mentioned, as a long-term investment.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Great to hear all around!
Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha, the trading service to which this individual belongs, has been on a roll lately &mdash; registering options gains this month of 604%... 1,078%... and 919%. One of those gains materialized in just over a week.
Alas, this premium advisory is closed to new subscribers at this time. Watch this space for when it reopens&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

NYSE-FMF

We’re entering a delicate window with the holiday tomorrow and U.S. markets closed. 

“Summer of Hell” 

putin-statue

In January, Mason Sexton made a daring prediction: Vladimir Putin would not survive 2025. “We weren’t speaking metaphorically.”

Bigger Than Israel-Iran

<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;The Street Loves Blood&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" />Whatever your opinion of the Israel-Iran war &mdash; or American involvement in it &mdash; one thing is evident: Chances are good it will be bullish for the U.S. stock market.
As we write this morning, about two dozen U.S. aerial refueling tankers are crossing the Atlantic toward the Middle East. The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is also on its way to the region.
On the other hand, Iran supposedly is ready to sue for peace. &ldquo;Messages passed by Tehran through intermediaries seek a return to talks if the U.S. stays out of the fight,&rdquo; says the subhead to a Wall Street Journal article posted at midmorning.
On the other-other hand, the lead reporter on that story&rsquo;s byline has a checkered history &mdash; accused of fabricating stories during her time at Reuters.
More about the problem with the war and the media later. First, some remarkable market 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" />&ldquo;The Street loves blood&rdquo; is an old Wall Street saying.
And it&rsquo;s what came to mind for Paradigm&rsquo;s Mason Sexton on Friday. In a dispatch to readers of The Map, he noticed some uncanny market parallels when looking back at major Israeli wars over the last 50 years&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Six-Day War, June 1967: From a level of around 860, the Dow Industrials rallied steadily to nearly 1,000 by late 1968</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Yom Kippur War, October 1973: A short rally of only a few days, but a rally nonetheless (preceding a grinding bear market that lasted into late 1974)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Israeli invasion of Lebanon, June-September 1982: From a level in the low 800s, the Dow launched into an epic bull market that August &mdash; running well past 11,000 before the dot-com bust arrived in early 2000. (Way back when, Mason called the start of that rally almost to the day)</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Israel-Hezbollah war, July-August 2006: The Dow began a sustained rise that summer from about 11,200 to a peak near 14,000 in late 2007 (as the early stages of the global financial crisis were underway).</li>
</ul>
So&hellip; four rallies, one lasting only a few days, one lasting 18 years, two that lasted well over a year before the market made a major top.
How will the pattern play out this time?
Or is this the time the pattern breaks?
Well, we don&rsquo;t want to give too much away. If you&rsquo;re a subscriber to The Map, you&rsquo;re already familiar with what Mr. Sexton sees just over the horizon.
If you&rsquo;re not, you should know that this week he&rsquo;s conducting a new edition of his wildly popular briefing from last March called The Prophecy.

This time, he&rsquo;s delivering what Paradigm publisher Matt Insley calls a &ldquo;terrifyingly specific prediction.&rdquo;
You don&rsquo;t want to dismiss that as hyperbole. Recall the bit I mentioned moments ago about how he nailed the start of an 18-year bull market in 1982? He forecast &ldquo;a massive rally in stocks&rdquo; on Aug. 9, 1982.
Three days later, the Dow hit a bottom that would never be seen again.
He called the top of that bull run in early 2000 as well &mdash; along with the tops and bottoms of the global financial crisis and COVID.
What&rsquo;s coming now? This new edition of The Prophecy gets underway this Wednesday at 1:27 p.m. EDT. (There&rsquo;s a significance to the odd start time &mdash; but to see why, you&rsquo;ll have to sign up to watch.)
We do ask that you sign up in advance to watch this one. <a href="https://signups.paradigmpress.me/2450494">But sign-up is as simple as clicking this link.</a> We&rsquo;ll send you an email with everything you need to know to be ready Wednesday.
<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" />The Alfred E. Neuman Market
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />True to the pattern just described, the U.S. stock market is rallying today &mdash; as if to take a page from Mad magazine icon Alfred E. Neuman: &ldquo;What, me worry?&rdquo;
After closing last week below 6,000, the S&amp;P 500 is up 1.1% on the day to 6,042. The Dow&rsquo;s gain is about the same, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s gain over 1.5%. Bonds, meanwhile, are looking flat.
The commodity complex is taking a rest after its initial spike when Israel began bombing Iran Thursday night. At last check, crude has pulled back $2.43 to $70.55.
Gold is barely holding on to the $3,400 level &mdash; but silver is up a few cents to $36.30.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Bitcoin seems unmoved by news of a new crypto ETF announced by the media arm of the president&rsquo;s business empire.
Trump Media has filed the registration papers with the SEC: The &ldquo;Truth Social Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF&rdquo; will hold 75% of its assets in Bitcoin and 25% in Ethereum.
The ETF&rsquo;s custodian will be crypto.com. No word on what ticker symbol the ETF might trade under.
Bitcoin is holding steady this morning at $107,567. Ditto for Ethereum at $2,641.
<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 Monster That Ate the Power Grid, Continued
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />For the record: AI now poses the biggest challenge to the stability of the power grid.
We&rsquo;ve been warning about <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-monster-that-ate-the-power-grid-ai">&ldquo;the monster that ate the power grid&rdquo;</a> for nearly 18 months now. It&rsquo;s one reason that large swaths of the country are <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/bungee-market#3">at risk of rolling blackouts</a> in case this summer turns extra hot.
Now comes the annual &ldquo;State of Reliability Report&rdquo; from the nonprofit North American Electric Reliability Corporation. It warns that the construction of data centers is proceeding at such a furious pace that power plants and transmission lines simply can&rsquo;t keep up.
Result? &ldquo;Lower system stability,&rdquo; says the report.
That&rsquo;s because data centers don&rsquo;t always require the same amount of juice at the same time. Already there&rsquo;s been trouble in northern Virginia&rsquo;s &ldquo;Data Center Alley&rdquo; &mdash; where voltage issues resulted in about 1.5 gigawatts of datacenters tripping offline last July, and 1.8 gigawatts this past February.
<a id="4"></a>&ldquo;A loss of load of this size is comparable to a large nuclear power plant coming on-line immediately and unexpectedly,&rdquo; says the report, &ldquo;creating an imbalance due to too much generation on the system.&rdquo;
As we&rsquo;ve mentioned in recent weeks, the Trump administration is addressing some of the problem by ordering certain coal-fired power plants to remain open past their scheduled shutdown dates. More &ldquo;baseload&rdquo; power, more stability. (More about that in today&rsquo;s mailbag.)
Too, the White House is looking to revoke Biden-era rules governing the carbon emissions by power plants.
But the latter of those two steps is likely to face court challenges. 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" />The News&hellip; and the &ldquo;Fog of War&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;Be wary of &lsquo;the news.&rsquo; Much of it is noise,&rdquo; warns our own Byron King about news from the war zones.
Byron is our expert on energy and mining stocks &mdash; but he says this with the authority of a 30-year background as a Navy flight officer, graduate of the Naval War College and former staffer with the Chief of Naval Operations.
He&rsquo;s seeing &ldquo;plenty of ignorant commentary from people who have next-to-zero knowledge. Even if they know something, it's not much. Plenty of disinformation.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Iran-Israel both are incentivized to spread propaganda. Innumerable outsiders have an interest in confusing everyone &amp; everything. And think of the potential for market manipulation.
&ldquo;It gets back to the old military adage about how &lsquo;first reports from the front are almost always wrong.&rsquo; Much of the war is happening at night, and/or very much cyber &amp; electronic. You likely will not know what's happening even if you are standing right there (e.g., &lsquo;on the spot&rsquo; reporters).
&ldquo;And things are happening at algorithm-like speeds because many systems are primed for things to happen at the speed of circuitry. Human eyeballs-brains are too slow. Look at every news item and begin by thinking that it's wrong, and take it from there.&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" />I&rsquo;ll add my own warning, drawing from 20 years practicing daily journalism before I moved into the financial publishing space.
For as valuable as X-formerly-Twitter can be as an alternative source of breaking news&hellip; Elon Musk did a grave disservice a while back when he made it nearly impossible for users to include external links in their original posts.
Musk&rsquo;s decision gave rise to thousands of slop accounts that post &ldquo;BREAKING NEWS&rdquo; &mdash; often as not just making make s*** up for the sake of clicks.
Case in point: Friday night an account called &ldquo;Merlin Capital&rdquo; posted: &ldquo;BREAKING: IRAN DECLARES STRAIGHT [sic] OF HORMUZ CLOSED.&rdquo;
Huge if true; over 20% of the global oil trade transits that slender waterway. But there was nothing to it.
Or this&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5V8Etq1YEJpZaeFj38O9wP/22639027df66267dca57dd5eaad0f1fe/HomelandSecurityTweet.png" alt="Homeland Tweet" width="540px" />
All too often, ordinarily sensible people will reflexively repost this sort of thing because it fuels their confirmation bias.
More than once, individuals I trust have reposted utter nonsense &mdash; and I have to go chase it down to see if there&rsquo;s any source behind it.
It&rsquo;s one thing when the story is about Ukraine&rsquo;s leader Zelenskyy <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/mainstream-muddies-the-waters-inflation#4">buying a </a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/mainstream-muddies-the-waters-inflation#4">choice</a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/mainstream-muddies-the-waters-inflation#4"> piece of property</a> from the British royal family. It&rsquo;s another thing when World War III is looming&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: Costly Electricity, Gold and &ldquo;Basel III&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />After our previous mention of the feds stepping in to keep coal-fired power plants open, we heard from a longtime reader&hellip;
&ldquo;Your bullet questioned the additional cost to consumers resulting from the Department of Energy order.
&ldquo;As one of those consumers (I live within driving distance from the J.H. Campbell plant in Michigan), local news reports that complying with the order suddenly creates the need for major maintenance and upgrades that weren't getting done with the facility only days from final shutdown.
&ldquo;To which I would also consider the increased cost of coal at spot prices rather than continuous contract.
&ldquo;Ignoring solar and storage, it looks like the Campbell plant had pretty much been replaced by the purchase of a gas-fired plant for the local grid (1,200 MW plus two standby units vs the 1,560 MW peak for Campbell).&nbsp;
&ldquo;While the additional baseload power could be handy as electricity demand increases, the increasing strain on my pocketbook in this instance feels like a triumph of doctrine over common sense.&rdquo;
Dave responds: All good points. It&rsquo;s the folly of central planning and top-down solutions for the Obama and Biden administrations to effectively order the shutdown of these plants. Not sure if it can be fixed with still more central planning and top-down solutions&hellip; but that&rsquo;s the route the Trump administration is going.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> While the gold price consolidates and the silver price plays catch-up, a reader writes from western Canada&hellip;
&ldquo;Will the Basel III directive on July 1 revalue central bank gold reserves?
&ldquo;Which central banks need to comply with Basel III? The Bank of England indicates it is not part of the Basel III framework for example.
&ldquo;Has the Basel III date of compliance been postponed?
&ldquo;We haven't heard much about the Basel III issue from you guys.&rdquo;
Dave: Well now, speaking of news you can&rsquo;t necessarily believe&hellip;
There&rsquo;ve been many rumors during 2025 surrounding the implementation of banking regulations known as &ldquo;Basel III&rdquo; &mdash; the third in a series of international rules drawn up over the years by the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland. (The BIS is often called &ldquo;the central banks&rsquo; central bank.&rdquo;)
Supposedly, gold was to be elevated to a &ldquo;Tier 1 High Quality Liquid Asset&rdquo; as of July 1 this year.
That would mean U.S. banks, when toting up their core capital reserves, could count physical gold at 100% of its market value. At present, it&rsquo;s marked down by 50% as a &ldquo;Tier 3 asset.&rdquo;
If true, this reclassification would mark a sea change in how the mandarins of the global financial system look upon gold &mdash; not as a &ldquo;risky&rdquo; hunk of metal, but as money.
But about a month ago, the London Bullion Market Association <a href="https://www.lbma.org.uk/articles/gold-and-hqla-correcting-misleading-online-information">poured a 55-gallon drum of ice water</a> on this chatter.
It seems gold is already a &ldquo;Tier 1&rdquo; asset &mdash; but it&rsquo;s not recognized as a &ldquo;High Quality Liquid Asset,&rdquo; nor will it be in the immediate future. The LBMA along with the World Gold Council are lobbying hard for gold&rsquo;s recognition as a &ldquo;High Quality Liquid Asset&rdquo; &mdash; as well it should be &mdash; but we&rsquo;re not there yet.
Exactly where the July 1 rumor originated is hard to say &mdash; at least while we&rsquo;re crashing deadline today. (Maybe a slop account on X?)
The point is that the rumor pulled in even some of the most knowledgeable people in the precious metals space, people who&rsquo;ve been on my radar for 15 years or longer &mdash; before the LBMA did its mid-May debunking.
That&rsquo;s how hard it is to separate rumor from reality these days. It&rsquo;s impossible to be too careful&hellip;
Best regards,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

shutterstock 2084377243

Here are some uncanny market parallels when looking back at major Israeli wars over the last 50 years… 

4 Wars = 4 Market Rallies (No. 5 Starting Now?)

<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;The Wars We Never Get Into&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars that we end,&rdquo; said Donald Trump on Inauguration Day 2025 &mdash; &ldquo;and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.&rdquo;
Yeah, about that&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6N7ByNjvUVY8o1oLaMm8ux/44912ca685c4e6b7b5237afe055e6b19/Michael-tweet.png" alt="michael tweet" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Israel&rsquo;s attack on Iran last night has propelled the oil price to nearly $74 a barrel &mdash; a level last seen in late January.
<blockquote>➢ In contrast to the usual pattern &mdash; &ldquo;buy the rumor, sell the news&rdquo; &mdash; the reaction here has been to buy both the rumor and the news.</blockquote>
We won&rsquo;t dwell on the particulars of Israel&rsquo;s attack; either you&rsquo;ve seen them already, or if not you can read about them nearly anywhere.
Tel Aviv bills its action as &ldquo;preemptive,&rdquo; which begs the question: What looming Iranian attack were the Israelis were trying to &ldquo;preempt&rdquo;?
In any event, the last time Iran sustained an attack of this magnitude on its territory was during the Iran-Iraq War &mdash; which ended in 1988. If mainstream accounts are to be believed, Iran&rsquo;s vaunted air defenses turned out to be a bust.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 narrative about U.S. involvement shifted dramatically in only 12 hours.
The original narrative last night was that Israel freelanced this attack &mdash; sabotaging U.S. diplomacy in the process. Talks between U.S. and Iranian negotiators were set for this Sunday; Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went and wrecked all that.
This morning, Trump told The Wall Street Journal, among other outlets, that he was well aware of the Israeli government&rsquo;s intentions before the attack was ever launched &mdash; despite his own public and private warnings to Netanyahu to back off. &ldquo;Heads-up? It wasn&rsquo;t a heads-up. It was, we know what&rsquo;s going on.&rdquo;
Which is worse? Israel going behind Trump&rsquo;s back &mdash; or Israel and Trump conducting an elaborate ruse to make the Iranians think Washington was sincere about wanting to negotiate?
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1jpDqrvi33kt3EP6mudMZd/d8032e0d77ec598cf7bbc1bc4f53673a/SaagarTweet.png" alt="saagar tweet" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> So now what? The Israelis are promising several more days of airstrikes. &ldquo;Israel knows it cannot eliminate Iran&rsquo;s nuclear program alone, or even set it back for more than a few months,&rdquo; tweets the independent journalist Max Blumenthal &mdash; &ldquo;so it aims to ignite a regional war that draws the U.S. into direct conflict.&rdquo;
Adds Trita Parsi of the nonpartisan Quincy Institute: &ldquo;In his speech during the attack on Iran, Netanyahu thanked Trump. He is doing his utmost to convince Tehran that the U.S. was in on the attack &mdash; hoping Iran retaliates against the U.S., so that Israel can get the U.S.-Iran war it has been pushing for since the early 2000s.&rdquo;
Reminder: For all of Trump&rsquo;s alleged antipathy toward U.S. military involvement in the Middle East, over 40,000 U.S. troops are stationed there. This map from Axios isn&rsquo;t 100% up to date, but it&rsquo;s close enough&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/185Xn0TB7AfL7YcvWOh2OB/d5e29ce0cb531beca06706c5d6ccc972/MilitaryMap.png" alt="military map" width="540px" />
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The problem for Trump now is that there&rsquo;s been no effort to sell the American people on the necessity of putting U.S. troops at risk.
Contrast that with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 &mdash; which was preceded by a relentless propaganda campaign lasting over six months.
It comes back to Trump&rsquo;s inaugural statement cited up top &mdash; and his messaging throughout the 2024 campaign, railing against forever wars in the region.
Escalation against Iran &ldquo;would be seen as an unforgivable betrayal by millions of American voters,&rdquo; tweeted The Federalist&rsquo;s editor-in-chief Mollie Hemingway only yesterday.
&ldquo;It would cost him real polling support that would be permanent.&rdquo;
And not just among the independent voters who put him over the top in the seven swing states on Election Day last year. Trump&rsquo;s own base is deeply split &mdash; largely on generational lines.
&ldquo;Boomercons&rdquo; with cable subscriptions who watch Sean Hannity and Mark Levin? They&rsquo;re all on board for war. But younger generations who stream videos of Xers like Tucker Carlson, and millennials like Candace Owens and Cassandra MacDonald? They want nothing to do with it.
(Yes, I&rsquo;m generalizing but you get the point. There&rsquo;s <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/majority-americans-hold-unfavourable-view-israel-pew-poll-finds">polling data</a> to back this up.)
Here&rsquo;s the scary thing: If large swaths of the American people and even Trump&rsquo;s own supporters aren&rsquo;t sold&hellip; then the risk is extreme that we&rsquo;ll soon see some kind of bogus <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_incident">Gulf of Tonkin</a> or <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Maine_(1890)#Sinking">&ldquo;Remember the Maine&rdquo;</a> incident involving a U.S. warship or U.S. base. Works every time&hellip;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Let&rsquo;s hope and pray cooler heads will prevail. But as the saying goes, hope is not a plan. 
We said it in this space only 10 days ago after the Ukrainian drone attack deep inside Russia: However many hedges against geopolitical risk you hold in your portfolio, it&rsquo;s probably not enough.
We&rsquo;re talking oil, gold, silver, copper, uranium &mdash; tangible wealth and the companies that produce it. Personally, I still need to beef up my silver holdings via the Sprott Physical Silver Trust (PSLV) &mdash; I&rsquo;ll continue my dollar-cost averaging today, even with silver prices hovering at a 12-year high.
<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" />The Markets Today (And Walmart&rsquo;s Bad Week)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />In contrast with the commodity complex, stocks and bonds aren&rsquo;t taking the news from the Middle East well.
Among the major indexes, the S&amp;P 500 is holding up best &mdash; down about two-thirds of a percent and clinging to the 6,000 level by closely cropped fingernails. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s losses are steeper, the Dow&rsquo;s steeper still. Volatility as measured by the VIX has spiked to 19.61, the highest since before Memorial Day.
Bonds are likewise selling off, pushing yields higher. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note is over 4.41%, up sharply from yesterday&rsquo;s close under 4.36%. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-real-reason-for-the-tariff-pause">As was the case in April</a>, Treasuries are not fulfilling their usual safe-haven role amid a crisis atmosphere.
Oil we covered earlier. Gold has rallied sharply &mdash; up 1.25% or $43 to $3,426. Bitcoin is also staging a solid rally after a severe smackdown yesterday; checking our screens it&rsquo;s back to $105,569.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s been a lousy week for Walmart &mdash; down 2.6% Wednesday and Thursday amid a nascent boycott campaign.
It began with a full-page ad in The New York Times for the nationwide &ldquo;No Kings&rdquo; protests against Donald Trump set for tomorrow. Paying for the ad was a billionaire scioness of the Walton family, Christy Walton.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2L8K1emfV28EEKuNErOn7k/97fd0c6e0c4b48dc3cf4a0908b3515dc/NoKings.png" alt="no kings" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Boycott Walmart!&rdquo; tweeted the MAGA-adjacent political operator Roger Stone.
Walmart, for its part, says it was blindsided. &ldquo;The advertisements from Christy Walton are in no way connected to or endorsed by Walmart,&rdquo; says a company spokeswoman.
The former Christy Tallant married into the Walton fortune in 1978. Her husband, John, was one of founder Sam Walton&rsquo;s sons; he died in a small plane crash in 2005. Christy Walton has no role in running the company or even any of the family trusts. Now 76, she lives in the well-heeled center-left enclave of Jackson Hole, Wyoming (because of course).
Hard telling to what extent Roger Stone&rsquo;s clarion call is catching on; after the beat-down the last two days, WMT shares are flat today.
But Walmart execs can&rsquo;t be happy, thinking they&rsquo;d put conservative protests behind them last year. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/peak-woke">As we chronicled</a> at the time, the company backed away from some of its more &ldquo;woke&rdquo; endeavors under pressure from activists like Robby Starbuck and Christopher Rufo.
<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;This Is Amnesty&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" />Even before Israel&rsquo;s attack on Iran, this stunning news yesterday got lost in the shuffle of other events&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1qYd81Ff0AHw84fWtzyA4t/395076aea78c111b101d254d73a9d453/AFPost.png" alt="af post" width="540px" />
Yesterday morning, the president posted on social media that &ldquo;Our great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace&hellip; Changes are coming!&rdquo;
By afternoon, he was telling reporters an executive order is in the works. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re not citizens, but they&rsquo;ve turned out to be great&hellip; We can&rsquo;t take [all of the employers&rsquo;] people and send them back.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;This is amnesty,&rdquo; tweets The Federalist&rsquo;s John Daniel Davidson.
As with the Israeli airstrikes on Iran, pockets of MAGA Nation are beside themselves: &ldquo;What Trump is describing here is amnesty for illegal immigrants,&rdquo; Davidson goes on. &ldquo;He&rsquo;s also making a declaration that businesses that openly flout US immigration law (for decades!) will face no consequences.&rdquo;
Another effect is pointed out by talk show host Mike Church: &ldquo;You also will not have local and regional farmers &amp; restaurateurs able to be competitive with multinationals until EVERYONE is hiring from the same, legal pool!&rdquo;
Gee, what was it your editor was saying at the end of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/gold-vs-bitcoin">Wednesday&rsquo;s edition</a>? When I pointed out that meatpackers and big hotel chains weren&rsquo;t getting raided by ICE?
Oh yeah: &ldquo;See how it works? The Fortune 500 skates. Meanwhile, ICE descends on a small business in LA&rsquo;s Fashion District, along with a Home Depot parking lot where migrants look for day jobs &mdash; and suddenly all hell breaks loose. Trump gets his showdown with teh libruls&hellip; large employers of illegal migrants carry on as usual&hellip; and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/its-not-just-the-illegals">Palantir makes bank</a> while law-abiding citizens will soon be subject to new horrors of surveillance.&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" />Gold or Bitcoin: Why Not Both?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Time is short, but we want to expend two of our bullets on the mailbag as the week draws to a close&hellip;
On the subject of gold vs. Bitcoin <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/gold-vs-bitcoin">addressed here Wednesday</a>, a reader writes: &ldquo;Why consider them as mutually exclusive?
&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve subscribed to several independent investor newsletters for about a decade now. So I&rsquo;m no expert investor by a long shot.
&ldquo;But I thought it was good to have some diversity in your investments. Is one better than another as far as gold and cryptos go as a non-dollar asset? I think each has its benefit. I have portions of precious metals (not just gold) and some coins in the crypto space.
&ldquo;Yes, including Bitcoin. I bought some initially in the 2017 era.
&ldquo;I have made more money in just Bitcoin that far outweighs any stock I have ever owned (unrealized gains or not). This includes using financial advisers and my own independent investing. I don&rsquo;t think I&rsquo;m biased. I&rsquo;m trying to be prudent.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />&ldquo;Best wishes for a great gathering in Nashville in October,&rdquo; a reader writes from Nashville ahead of the 2025 Paradigm Shift Summit. &ldquo;Enjoy your stay.
&ldquo;Been here 61 years and the city has changed just a bit. The weather should be getting right. Business pulls me away on that day, but enjoy the stay and keep the content coming and the presses running.&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" />What&rsquo;s in a Name?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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, I think those doofi at McKinsey goofed on one major point when Warner Bros. and Discovery merged, at their malignant suggestion,&rdquo; a reader writes after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/gold-vs-bitcoin#4">Wednesday&rsquo;s foray into financial absurdity</a>.
[As an aside, this reader indicates he&rsquo;s already signed up to join us in Nashville. Click here for your invitation.]
&ldquo;The obvious error was in choosing the name of the combined company. They got it bass-ackward; it should have been named Discover Warner Bros. The name itself would have been a suggestion of what the company wanted people to do. But since it was named backward, no one was ready to listen. Instead, we were given the lamest possible name for the combined company, and it didn't even tell their stockholders what to do.
&ldquo;Also, if they did choose Discover Warner Brothers, then their stock symbol would probably have been DWB, which would be close enough to calling them &lsquo;Dweeb.&rsquo;&rdquo;
Dave: Hmmm&hellip; The problem there is that the legacy company, pre-merger, wasn&rsquo;t called &ldquo;Discover.&rdquo; It was &ldquo;Discovery,&rdquo; after its namesake Discovery Channel.
But&hellip;
Your musings do bring to mind the classic Saturday Night Live sketches called &ldquo;World of Discover&rdquo; &mdash; featuring the phenomenal Phil Hartman sending up Peter Graves.
Please, let&rsquo;s end this hell week on a lighter note&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4Re8oDtw0FJV9CBg5TRW3n/dfab713fcc9aeeae0642733710e244e1/youtube-snl.png" alt="youtube" width="450px" />
And try to have a good weekend,
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/signatures/dave-gonigam.png" alt="Dave Gonigam" width="250px" align="left" />
Dave Gonigam Managing editor, Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

trump-wars

We won’t dwell on the particulars of Israel’s attack on Iran, but the narrative about U.S. involvement shifted dramatically in only 12 hours.