On this final day of 2024, we bring you a special video edition to help prime your portfolio for 2025.
Welcome to your post-holiday video edition of the 5 Bullets!
As you ease into your day, you won&rsquo;t want to miss some never-before-seen content forecasting one of the biggest investment trends for 2025.
In fact, exactly two weeks ago, Paradigm&rsquo;s top minds convened in Baltimore &mdash; where trading pro and former hedge fund manager Enrique Abeyta issued a monumental New Year&rsquo;s prediction.
He posed one intriguing question: Which Mag 7 mainstay will lose over 30% in market cap?
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In fact, Enrique believes, a major tech player&rsquo;s meteoric rise might be coming to an end.
And he&rsquo;s here to outline how this company will shock investors and financial media alike as he compares this scenario to a well-known plunge during the dot-com crash.
However, Enrique remains optimistic about this tech giant&rsquo;s long-term future, suggesting its value could eventually double. Or even increase tenfold.
Click above to view Enrique&rsquo;s surprise 2025 forecast&hellip; While you enjoy a lazy day in your pajamas (if you&rsquo;re into that sorta thing).
Best regards,
Emily Clancy Paradigm Pressroom&rsquo;s 5 Bullets

Enrique-marketcap

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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

Paradigm’s top minds convened in Baltimore — where trading pro and former hedge fund manager Enrique Abeyta issued a monumental New Year’s prediction. 


Mega-Cap Meltdown in 2025

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Trump: Think Like China
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 the key to American success is to be&hellip; more&hellip; like&hellip; China?
This morning the president took to his Truth Social platform to express a desire for publicly traded American companies to stop reporting quarterly results.
&ldquo;Subject to SEC Approval, Companies and Corporations should no longer be forced to &lsquo;Report&rsquo; on a quarterly basis&hellip; but rather to Report on a &lsquo;Six (6) Month Basis,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;This will save money, and allow managers to focus on properly running their companies.&rdquo;
Hmmm&hellip; Your editor has a long enough memory to recall that while campaigning for president a decade ago, Hillary Clinton hit out against what she called &ldquo;quarterly capitalism&rdquo; &mdash; and corporate America&rsquo;s &ldquo;obsession with share prices and quarterly earnings over real value creation.&rdquo;
Her solution at the time was to change the definition of short-term capital gains in the tax code. Under her plan, if you wanted to pay the lowest capital-gains tax rate when you sold an investment, you&rsquo;d have to hold onto that investment for six years instead of just one.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Trump has no such scheme in mind. He just seems to think that if earnings season rolls around only twice a year, CEOs would keep more of an eye on the long-term.
Twice-a-year reporting is already the rule in the European Union and Singapore.
Then he invoked the China example: &ldquo;Did you ever hear the statement that, &lsquo;China has a 50 to 100 year view on management of a company, whereas we run our companies on a quarterly basis??? Not good!!!&rdquo;
Considering the challenges facing China&rsquo;s economy right now &mdash; slowing industrial output, slowing retail sales, an aging population, a real estate sector that seems to be in perma-crisis &mdash; it seems odd to point to China as an example to emulate.
Then again, you and I might not be the intended audience for his message. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />U.S.-China Trade: The Turning Point?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />U.S.-China trade talks might be at a turning point.
A U.S. delegation led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent met today with Chinese negotiators led by Vice Premier He Lifeng in Madrid, Spain. They have a little less than two months to reach agreement before steep U.S. tariffs kick in.
But it seems a separate, earlier deadline dominated today&rsquo;s discussions. Bessent emerged from the talks announcing a &ldquo;framework&rdquo; was in place for the Chinese firm ByteDance to sell the TikTok social media platform to U.S buyers.
No details yet &mdash; but Bessent says the deal would be finalized when Trump speaks with Chinese president Xi Jinping on Friday.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />As you might recall, Congress passed and Joe Biden signed legislation last year banning TikTok unless ByteDance could line up a U.S. buyer. 
At that time, a moral panic had swept both sides of the aisle in Washington: Despite a paucity of evidence, the narrative took hold that TikTok was spying on and propagandizing its U.S. customers. (Biden continued to campaign on TikTok even after signing the legislation.)
The ban was due to come into effect on Jan. 19, 2025 &mdash; one day before Trump was sworn in for his second term. One of his first official acts was to extend the deadline 90 days &mdash; buying time for a deal with a U.S. buyer to materialize.
He extended that deadline again in April&hellip; and once more in July. It was becoming a running joke. The current deadline is this Wednesday.
Again, we have nothing in the way of details about this &ldquo;framework.&rdquo; But if the shadow of TikTok is no longer hanging over trade talks, the path is cleared for a broad trade agreement &mdash; encompassing everything from tariffs to Chinese rare earths to U.S. farm goods &mdash; sometime in the next two months.
Said Treasury Secretary Bessent in Madrid: &ldquo;We preferred to keep the discussions on TikTok. We will be holding trade negotiations in about a month again at a different location."
Maybe that was the point of the president&rsquo;s praise of the Chinese &ldquo;50 to 100 year view.&rdquo; We shall see&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" /> That said, any optimism about Washington and Beijing coming to terms is not reflected in Nvidia&rsquo;s share price today.
Shortly before the U.S.-Chinese talks got underway in Madrid, the Chinese government accused Nvidia of violating Chinese anti-monopoly laws &mdash; without offering any details. An investigation is ongoing.
NVDA shares are down 1.5% as we write.
<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" />Careful What You Wish For&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;Markets should be careful what they wish for,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards.
The Federal Reserve holds one of its periodic policy-setting meetings tomorrow and Wednesday. Jim is in tune with the Wall Street consensus that the Fed will cut short-term interest rates for the first time in nine months.
But he&rsquo;s out of step with the Wall Street consensus about what a rate cut will mean.
&ldquo;Lower rates are not stimulative, and they're not associated with inflation. They are associated with recession and depression, not a healthy economy.
&ldquo;When inflation spiked in the late 1970s (and I was there), interest rates were 14%. During the Great Depression, a sustained period of deflation, interest rates were 1% or 2%.
&ldquo;So low rates are associated with deflation, disinflation, recession and depression. Those are separate problems. And they are very serious problems, but different from inflation.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;I expect a coming recession to cause a stock market drawdown,&rdquo; Jim goes on.
&ldquo;Another problem for markets may be an AI bubble bursting. It&rsquo;s difficult to predict when that will happen and I&rsquo;m not putting a stake in the ground, but investors should be careful.
&ldquo;Companies developing AI are making strides, but this is very much subject to the law of diminishing marginal returns where you get to a point where you spend enormous amounts of money over and above what you already have for just tiny increases in output and performance.&rdquo;
Jim will have much more to say about AI in the next monthly issue of Strategic Intelligence &mdash; coming at the end of 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" />But in the meantime, the stock market has ample fuel to head higher into yearend.
The market had a green month in August and barring some kind of shock is on track for a green September.
According to figures from the financial services firm Piper Sandler, that&rsquo;s happened only 24 years since 1928. In those years, the average return for October&ndash;December was 5.6%.
As we write this morning, the S&amp;P 500 is up a half percent and in record territory &mdash; over 6,600 for the first time. The Nasdaq is up about three-quarters of a percent, while the Dow is barely in the green.
Among the big movers: Tesla, up 6.6% on word that Elon Musk has added 1 million shares to his existing stake. As the legendary fund manager Peter Lynch once said, insiders sell their shares for any number of reasons but there&rsquo;s only one reason they buy &mdash; they expect the price will go up.
Precious metals are back on the march &mdash; gold up $22 to $3,663 and silver up 28 cents to $42.37. Crypto is languishing, Bitcoin under $115,000 and Ethereum under $4,500.
Crude begins the week up over 1% to $63.38.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />New Obamacare Debacle
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 pattern is becoming clear: Before the day arrives that the health care cartel implodes, it will first attempt to squeeze blood from a turnip by making everyday Americans pay even more.
As we mentioned last week, employers face an average 9.5% jump in health insurance costs next year &mdash; and some of them are responding by taking bigger deductions out of employee paychecks or jacking up out-of-pocket charges such as deductibles.
Now comes word that health care might be at the center of the next &ldquo;partial government shutdown&rdquo; at the end of this month.
Congress has to pass either a fiscal 2026 budget or a &ldquo;continuing resolution&rdquo; in 15 more days to keep the federal government operating as normal. But Democrats are threatening to hold out over the issue of Obamacare subsidies.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Here&rsquo;s the background: In 2021, Congress expanded the Obamacare subsidies as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 &mdash; one of the big COVID-era spending bills.
The expanded subsidies are due to expire at year-end.
Over the summer, we cited figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation: Expiration of the subsidies would result in higher costs for people buying insurance on the Obamacare exchanges &mdash; by an average $1,296 per year.
About 24.3 million Americans buy their insurance via Obamacare and because the coverage is so ungodly expensive, about 92% of them rely on subsidies. For many small-business owners and the self-employed, Obamacare is their only option for health insurance.
Time was when the first Trump administration promised to &ldquo;repeal and replace&rdquo; Obamacare. Now they just want to stick everyday folks with its ever-rising costs.
Could it be? For once, Democrats are latching onto an issue they can actually get regular Americans to rally around?
We&rsquo;ll see. But the bigger point is that U.S. health care is so ruinously expensive that <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/luigi-mangione-isnt-the-problem">something&rsquo;s got to give</a> &mdash; in the federal budget, in the budgets of corporate America, in everyday folks&rsquo; household budgets or more likely all three.
<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: DST
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 a reader lamented the dark mornings setting in this month under daylight saving time, we got a flurry of responses&hellip;
One reader pointed out something that I&rsquo;ve neglected to mention in my periodic DST rants &mdash; that it began as a wartime measure during World War I and was actually called War Time.
Another wondered about year-round DST and the matter of kids going to school in the dark: &ldquo;If schools have such a concern about light issues, why not shorten hours in the winter and then make up the hours lost if need be. Follow the natural cycles.&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;During the Nixon-mandated DST in the &rsquo;70s, I owned a small shop in Hanover, New Hampshire,&rdquo; writes our final correspondent.
&ldquo;Previously, when we went off DST in October, we noticed that it was already dark at 4 p.m. and if one was in a valley no sun could be seen after about 2:30 p.m. Consequently, everyone rushed home from work and did not shop after work.
&ldquo;However, in the year of Nixon's year-round DST, our business increased 20% during the winter. Our store kept the same product lines, same marketing. Essentially nothing changed except the advent of year-round DST. Just think of the positive and potentially widespread economic impact of year-round DST, and at no cost!
&ldquo;Some years after we moved to the Free State of Florida, which has longer evening daylight due to its more southern latitude, we visited Woodstock, Vermont, and went cross country skiing. There was no sun visible from midafternoon on, being blocked by low hills.
&ldquo;Not only does lack of DST affect businesses' bottom lines in the north, but I know firsthand that it leads to outright depression due to light deprivation.
&ldquo;School times can be adjusted to accommodate year-round DST, as can other schedules.
&ldquo;A final note that I have found personally important is that one can work a full day and still travel 150&ndash;200 miles after work before darkness falls with less visibility.
&ldquo;So year-round DST can be an economic boon/boom, as well as a psychological boost, and with safer evening driving conditions.
&ldquo;I believe that folks detest the adjustments made necessary by twice-a-year time changes, which have psychological and health implications, much more than they dislike DST. Nixon proved to me that year-round DST made me healthier, wealthier and hopefully wiser.&rdquo;
Dave: Thank you for sharing your adult memories of the previous year-round DST experience.
It comes down to what constitutes a &ldquo;reasonable&rdquo; hour for sunrise and sunset. If you define it as 7:00 a.m. or earlier and 6:00 p.m. or later, cartographer Andy Woodruff concluded some years ago that the least-worst solution is year-round standard time. (You can see all of Woodruff&rsquo;s map goodness <a href="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/enlarged-images/ShouldyouMaps_Large.png">at this link</a>.)
Still, you make a compelling case that year-round DST would be a vast improvement over twice-a-year time change &mdash; even if for me it meant I&rsquo;d still need a light on in my home office at 9:00 a.m. in the darkest winter!
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

Trump-China

So the key to American success is to be… more… like… China?

Trump: Think Like China

<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" />Survey Says&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" />We asked, you responded.
At the top of yesterday&rsquo;s edition, we told you about an unusual event we&rsquo;re conducting next Monday.
We&rsquo;ll throw the spotlight on a fairly new Paradigm Press editor who lacks the pedigree most of our editors have &mdash; but who&rsquo;s demonstrated beyond any doubt that he can identify stocks with &ldquo;10-bagger&rdquo; potential.
The performance of his personal portfolio in the last year proves it &mdash; 18 trades that all achieved 10X gains or more. We&rsquo;ve even taken to calling him Mr. 10X.
Ahead of our event on Monday, we asked you to fill out a brief survey. Between 5 Bullets and various other Paradigm platforms, we got roughly 1,500 responses.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the vast majority told us they had not made a trade within the last year that delivered 10X gains.
But a handful did. Some of them identified MP Materials (MP) &mdash; the rare-earth name that zoomed higher after an announcement the Pentagon would take a stake in the firm. We&rsquo;re pleased to say several Paradigm editors spotted that one for their readers.
Another reader identified Fannie Mae (FNMA) &mdash; also flagged by more than one Paradigm editor.
A few identified &ldquo;Magnificent 7&rdquo; names like Nvidia and Meta; presumably they were playing options or held their shares longer than 12 months to achieve their 1,000% gain.
But there was another question we asked&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;If you had the secret to hitting 1,000% winner after 1,000% winner&hellip; how would that impact your investing and life?&rdquo;
Here&rsquo;s where people really opened up about their hopes and dreams.
&ldquo;It would make a significant impact on my small portfolio,&rdquo; said a fellow named Brian.
&ldquo;A lot,&rdquo; said Valerie. &ldquo;I live paycheck to paycheck.&rdquo;
&ldquo;It would ease my worries regarding retirement,&rdquo; said Kevin.
&ldquo;Already retired, so that would be immense,&rdquo; said Bill.
&ldquo;Debt relief. Travel. Retirement $$$. Peace of mind,&rdquo; said Jennifer.
Others figured they&rsquo;d pay off their mortgage, or give more to charity.
One reader was already thinking ahead to the headaches that come with considerable wealth: &ldquo;How will I pay taxes on big winners outside of IRAs?&rdquo;
&ldquo;Oh my goodness,&rdquo; said Debbie &mdash; &ldquo;It&rsquo;d be a miracle in my life and probably turn my life around, making up for the years I&rsquo;ve sat on the sidelines.&rdquo;
Every one of us at Paradigm gets jazzed when we see reader input like this. It&rsquo;s our reason for being. And if our editors have already had a hand in making 10X gains possible with names like MP and FNMA, that&rsquo;s even better. Our new 10X project is taking it to the next level.

And then consider the final question we included on the survey&hellip;
Will you join us this Monday at 11:00 a.m. EDT where you can meet Mr. 10X &mdash; and get a FREE copy of &ldquo;The List,&rdquo; packed with 30 stocks primed for 1,000% returns?
<a href="https://paradigm10x.com{{sms}}">Follow this link for more details</a> from Publisher Matt Insley and VP of Publishing Doug Hill.

<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 Consumer Is Bummed
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> The big economic number of the day suggests the mighty American consumer is starting to crack.
The University of Michigan is out with its reading on consumer sentiment so far in September. The headline number is 55.4 &mdash; way below the expectations of Wall Street economists.
The Michigan survey is flawed in many ways. Often it&rsquo;s just a reflection of how the stock market is doing.
But not now. The major U.S. stock indexes are at or near all-time highs &mdash; while consumer sentiment is in the toilet. Look how bad it is on a chart going back over 40 years&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3w4bslkRWCy9ligjcoLx5F/841a3b9d7d72926d002d9a9a6a6d8777/Lawrence-09-12.png" alt="lawrence" width="540px" />
Perhaps the lousy number reflects everyday folks&rsquo; ongoing struggles with inflation. The typical survey respondent expects a 4.8% inflation rate over the next year &mdash; unchanged from last month.
The Federal Reserve pays close attention to the Michigan inflation-expectation figures when setting policy. But today&rsquo;s release likely won&rsquo;t move the needle: Traders in the futures market assign a 95% probability the Fed will cut short-term interest rates next week from 4.5% to 4.25%.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Speaking of the stock market, it&rsquo;s a mixed bag going into the weekend.
<blockquote>➢ Congratulations are in order for readers of Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel &mdash; who just got instructions today to collect a 229% gain from their call options on United Rentals. Very nice for only four months&hellip;</blockquote>
The big story in precious metals is that silver is on track for a weekly close over $42 for the first time since 2011. Gold is also in the green, but not as strongly; still it&rsquo;s within reach of $3,650. Crude is up nearly a buck to $63.27.
In the crypto space, Ethereum has climbed over $4,500 while Bitcoin is back above $115K.
<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" />DOGE Dud
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />At the risk of sounding like a broken record, DOGE hasn&rsquo;t done a damn thing to reduce federal spending.
Yesterday afternoon the U.S. Treasury issued its monthly statement of income and outflows. Federal spending totaled $689 billion in August, slightly higher than the August 2024 figure of $687 billion &mdash; when you&rsquo;ll recall the Biden administration was spending like mad to ensure Kamala Harris&rsquo; election.
Revenue clocked in at $344 billion for August &mdash; up 12% from a year earlier, thanks almost entirely to tariffs. Thus the monthly deficit of $345 billion is down 9% from August 2024. Yay?
A similar pattern emerges when you examine the period February&ndash;August, encompassing the first seven full months of the Trump administration.
Here again, spending was 3% higher than the previous year under Biden &mdash; $4.38 trillion in 2025 versus $4.26 trillion in 2024. But revenue jumped 12% &mdash; mostly tariffs, but also individual income taxes &mdash; resulting in a 13% shrinkage of the budget deficit.
The end of Uncle Sam&rsquo;s fiscal year comes at the end of this month, so we&rsquo;ll have final figures for fiscal 2025 in early to mid-October.
But the pattern is already clear for all to see: DOGE was and is smoke and mirrors.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 &ldquo;One Big Beautiful Bill&rdquo; has managed to make the tax code even more complex and arcane than it already was.
Of course, it was important to prevent the tax brackets enacted in the 2017 Trump tax bill from expiring; if Congress hadn&rsquo;t acted, everyone would have reverted to Obama-era tax rates. The 2025 bill makes the 2017 brackets permanent.
But in many other respects, the law &ldquo;fails to reform the tax code&rsquo;s accumulating complexity, and indeed worsens it in many respects,&rdquo; write the analysts at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
One of the blessings of the 2017 tax bill was the generous standard deduction: Before the bill&rsquo;s passage, nearly one-third of individual filers itemized their deductions on Schedule A. After the bill&rsquo;s passage, it&rsquo;s been only about 10%.
That&rsquo;s a big savings in time and hassle for millions of Americans.
But now that changes with the 2025 bill&rsquo;s temporary raising of the cap on the SALT deduction for state and local taxes. The Tax Foundation expects the number of filers who itemize to jump by 41% next year. &ldquo;That means nearly 7 million more people facing longer, more complex returns &mdash; adding an estimated $1.7 billion in compliance costs next year alone.&rdquo;
Other changes will also reduce folks&rsquo; tax bills at the cost of more paperwork. The expanded senior deduction, the deductions for overtime and tips, the deduction for interest on certain car loans&hellip; all of it adds more red tape.
<blockquote>➢ And the details on some of that red tape are yet to be worked out. For instance, the Treasury Department is still working up the rules on which tipped occupations will qualify for the no-tax-on-tips provision of the bill.</blockquote>
<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" /> JPM and Epstein: Just Another Partisan Football
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 American people deserve to know what happened at JPMorgan and other banks that financed Mr. Epstein,&rdquo; says a letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and nine other Democratic senators.
This week The New York Times published what it portrayed as a huge expose of JPM&rsquo;s relationship with the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
&ldquo;We combed through more than 13,000 pages of legal and financial records &mdash; including sealed depositions and internal bank records &mdash; to understand how America&rsquo;s leading lender enabled the century&rsquo;s most notorious sexual predator,&rdquo; the paper boasts.
But none of it was a revelation if you keep up with this e-letter. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-truth-about-gold-iras#3">Over two years ago</a>, we told you about a lawsuit brought by the government of the U.S. Virgin Islands against JPM. Among the jaw-dropping allegations that went unnoticed by the mainstream at the time&hellip;
<ul>
<li>JPM routinely looked the other way when it came to Epstein&rsquo;s ongoing sexual predation because he kept bringing in a slew of new wealthy clients</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>JPM acted as Epstein&rsquo;s enabler right up until 2019, the year he died in custody &mdash; far beyond when JPM supposedly dumped him as a client in 2013</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>JPM routinely facilitated large cash withdrawals on Epstein&rsquo;s behalf &mdash; the sort that would get you and me flagged as terrorists or money launderers &mdash; even though the bank was well aware Epstein paid off his victims in cash.</li>
</ul>
Alas, the Virgin Islands settled out of court in September 2023 for $75 million &mdash; about 0.18% of JPM&rsquo;s revenue the previous quarter.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Anyway, the Times rehashed all of this a few days ago &mdash; and suddenly it&rsquo;s got the attention of folks on Capitol Hill.
Well, it&rsquo;s got the attention of Democrats anyway &mdash; which gets us back to the letter we mentioned a few moments ago. It&rsquo;s addressed to Sen. Tim Scott (R-South Carolina), the chair of the Senate Banking Committee.
The Dems want JPM CEO Jamie Dimon to testify under oath about what he knew and when he knew it. They also want testimony from execs at Deutsche Bank &mdash; where Epstein moved his accounts after JPM cut him loose.
No, we don&rsquo;t expect any sort of accountability to come from this.
The story has become just one more partisan football this year. Democrats are suddenly keen to hang the scandal on Donald Trump given his own Epstein ties. And for reasons known only to himself, Trump has taken to portraying the entire sordid saga as a &ldquo;hoax&rdquo; concocted by Democrats. Most Republicans are taking their cue from him. And so it goes.
<blockquote>➢ To his credit, it seems the late Charlie Kirk broke ranks with Trump on the Epstein story &mdash; even speculating at times about the possibility Epstein was an Israeli spy. And speaking of Kirk&hellip;</blockquote>
<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: Charlie Kirk
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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;Copy that!&rdquo; writes one of our regulars when I mentioned the Kirk shooting has a certain hall-of-mirrors quality. &ldquo;This culture of political violence and mass shootings is mind-numbing.
&ldquo;Yet as dreadful and dark as that is, I find myself repeatedly saying &lsquo;have faith.
&ldquo;I must be getting optimistic in my old age! It takes no effort now to convince myself that God&rsquo;s got this.
&ldquo;I figure my job is to keep it real and manage a few details, and maybe light up some of the darkness from time to time.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Now come the predictable demands to clamp down on speech, the unambiguous language of the First Amendment be damned.
Rep. Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana) and Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) are leading the charge so far.
&ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to use congressional authority and every influence with Big Tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk,&rdquo; Higgins tweeted yesterday. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m going to lean forward in this fight, demanding that Big Tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />For any number of reasons, I&rsquo;m behind schedule with this year&rsquo;s edition of the annual 5 Bullets censorship issue &mdash; typically something I do in August.
(<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/todays-5-bullets-is-packed-with-misinformation">Last year&rsquo;s edition</a> is still available in our voluminous archives.)
When I get around to it, I suspect many readers will find it disturbing because it will hold Republicans to the same standard as Democrats.
The Trump administration&rsquo;s performance on speech &ldquo;is way worse than anything Biden did,&rdquo; says the courageous civil liberties litigator Jenin Younes. And she ought to know; she fought Biden&rsquo;s censorship <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/supreme-cowards">at the Supreme Court</a>.
(Given her refusal to be pigeonholed politically, Younes is the subject of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2025/09/09/first-amendment-trump/">a shockingly fair profile</a> this week in The Washington Post.)
I will attempt to get the censorship issue done before the end of the month. In the meantime, we&rsquo;ll leave you today with the words of Charlie Kirk himself &mdash; pushing back against the likes of Rep. Higgins.
From <a href="https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1925582744320712907">a Kirk tweet last spring</a>, after two people were gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington: &ldquo;Speech is not violence. Only violence is.&rdquo;
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

We asked readers to fill out a brief survey. Between 5 Bullets and various other Paradigm platforms, we got roughly 1,500 responses.

<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" />Charlie Kirk: Hall of Mirrors
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 have this terrible feeling of dread for what&rsquo;s on the horizon,&rdquo; tweets Melissa Witte, aka &ldquo;villgecrazylady&rdquo; &mdash; one of the most vital voices to emerge on the American right in the last couple of years.
&ldquo;America is heading to a much darker place,&rdquo; agrees the independent journalist Max Blumenthal &mdash; for over a decade, an essential voice on the left.
Both command your editor&rsquo;s respect. Both are referring, of course, to the livestreamed murder of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk &mdash; really, it looked like a professional hit. Both have been scrupulous about not jumping to conclusions.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> With the passage of less than 24 hours, there&rsquo;s a hall-of-mirrors quality to the whole thing &mdash; one that might never go away.
The FBI was certain they had their guy &mdash; until they weren&rsquo;t. The longer the perp remains on the run, the greater the likelihood the perp will never be caught.
As one Chris Morlock writes on his X account, &ldquo;This is a new age of political violence where even a president can be shot and no one knows anything about what happened. That's probably the most important thing. Kirk was literally talking about &lsquo;gang violence&rsquo; &mdash; [those were] his last words.
&ldquo;It is an age of mass shootings and political &lsquo;gang violence.&rsquo; No one knows who shot or why, and no one really cares. Read the latest conspiracy theory of your pick.&rdquo;
The financial implications, you wonder?
This morning I can&rsquo;t shake the thought of Italy during the 1970s. But the analogy will need time to marinate before I can turn it into a cogent line of thought. Some day soon.
In the meantime, there really isn&rsquo;t much to say today that I didn&rsquo;t say already in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/blood-trains">my &ldquo;civil war&rdquo; edition of late 2023</a>&hellip; or my musings <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-madness-is-just-beginning">less than 48 hours after Donald Trump was nearly assassinated</a> last year.
<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: Still Sticky
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Not that it&rsquo;s exactly a surprise, but there was zero progress combating inflation last month.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is out with the consumer price index. The official inflation rate is running 0.4% month-over-month &mdash; hotter than expected &mdash; thanks to a 0.6% jump in groceries and a 1.9% jump in gasoline.
The year-over-year inflation rate works out to 2.9%. As you can see, inflation has been stuck in a channel between 2.3% on the low side and 3% on the high side for the last year &mdash; and any progress made vanquishing inflation early in 2025 has now been wiped out.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4Cp894AiCtWdfn0LCOcZJl/e7d8a3ed8ce1c552240363c8a89f2c6f/5Bullets_No_Progress.png" alt="No_Progress" 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" />In a not-unrelated development, the Labor Department&rsquo;s internal watchdog has opened an investigation into how the BLS collects its inflation and jobs data.
These &ldquo;inspectors general&rdquo; frequently do a good job uncovering wrongdoing &mdash; but their investigations rarely lead to meaningful reforms.
Examples: The Justice Department&rsquo;s investigation of the &ldquo;Russiagate&rdquo; nonsense from Trump&rsquo;s first term and the inspector general assigned to track down the rampant waste of taxpayer money in Afghanistan.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Today&rsquo;s inflation figures are the last major batch of economic data to be released before the Federal Reserve makes its next move on interest rates.
As we write this morning, the betting in the futures market shows an 89% probability the Fed will trim the fed funds rate next Wednesday from 4.5% to 4.25%. And there&rsquo;s an 11% probability of a super-sized cut to 4%.
There&rsquo;s a bit of uncertainty about the makeup of the Fed&rsquo;s Open Market Committee going into this next meeting. Fed governor Lisa Cook will cast a vote; on Tuesday a federal judge ruled she could stay on the job while she challenges her firing by President Trump. But it&rsquo;s up in the air whether Trump adviser Stephen Miran will cast a vote; his nomination still has to clear the Senate.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />With a rate cut next week a lock, the major U.S. stock indexes are all in record territory.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 is up over three-quarters of a percent to 6,583. The Dow and the Nasdaq are also on track to set records at day&rsquo;s end.
Gold is steady at $3,635 while silver has rallied to $41.40. Bitcoin has pushed past $114,000 while Ethereum sits at $4,421.
Looking at the price of crude, you&rsquo;d have no idea Israel bombed six countries and territories in a 72-hour span this week. A barrel of West Texas Intermediate is down more than a buck to $62.55
<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" />Employers Groan Under Exploding Health Care Costs
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 not just the U.S. government&rsquo;s finances that are threatened by exploding health care costs. So are the balance sheets of corporate America.
One day last spring <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/luigi-mangione-isnt-the-problem">we devoted all </a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/luigi-mangione-isnt-the-problem">5</a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/luigi-mangione-isnt-the-problem"> of our </a><a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/luigi-mangione-isnt-the-problem">Bullets</a> to the rapacious health care cartel &mdash; delivering average outcomes among developed countries but at a far, far higher cost.
We kept the focus on how those costs threaten to detonate Uncle Sam&rsquo;s finances&hellip; but now companies are feeling the pinch too.
With open-enrollment time approaching in a couple more months, &ldquo;U.S. businesses are facing the biggest health-insurance cost increases in at least 15 years,&rdquo; says today&rsquo;s Wall Street Journal &mdash; an average 9.5% jump according to figures from two separate firms.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an unsustainable number for a lot of employers,&rdquo; says Shawn Gremminger of the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions &mdash; a group of companies that furnish their employees with health insurance.
For now, many companies seem content to eat most of those costs; &ldquo;tactics such as changing plan designs are likely to shave a percentage point or two from the average increase,&rdquo; says the Journal.
But still other companies are taking bigger deductions out of employee paychecks or jacking up out-of-pocket charges such as deductibles.
Reasons for this new jump? One insurer chalks it up to providers using AI to bill more aggressively. Another says working-age people need help for cancer, heart conditions and other issues in numbers they didn&rsquo;t before.
&ldquo;Diseases that we usually thought of as for elderly, we&rsquo;re seeing more and more in a younger, working-age population,&rdquo; says Kirk Roy at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan.
Hmmm&hellip; Why might that be happening? Did something in health care change dramatically in the last, say, five years? Just asking&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" />Watch Ad, Collect Toilet Paper
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />New horizons in advertising: Growing numbers of public toilets in China require you to watch an ad before you get toilet paper.
Last week the China Insider&rsquo;s Facebook page posted a viral video of how they work&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4VWacAPwsTksKohYwYaIJ4/3fda1cf24033a674d5780999d4cfcd4f/ChinaInsider.png" alt="china insider" width="450px" />
So&hellip; you scan a QR code with your phone. Then your phone serves up an ad. When the ad&rsquo;s over, the dispenser spits out a strip of TP.
Want to go ad-free? (Yeah, couldn&rsquo;t resist the pun.) It&rsquo;ll cost you half a yuan or about seven cents.
According to the Oddity Central website, Chinese authorities implemented the scheme with an eye toward cutting down on TP use. Nor is this scheme the first: As far back as 2017, facial scanners were connected to TP dispensers (!) that spat out only one strip per user every nine minutes.
The ads are novel, for sure, but the website points out the downsides are indisputable: &ldquo;What do you do if you need to use the bathroom and don&rsquo;t have your phone with you, or you run out of battery?&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: Paper Checks, Daylight Time
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On the subject of the U.S. government no longer issuing paper checks as of next month, a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;My accountant sent out an email a week or so ago informing his clients the IRS will not be accepting paper checks &mdash; and everybody starting almost immediately has to pay electronically.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Some people are not connected to the e-world and I know several people this will impact. I am not e-illiterate but resist as much as I can and now have to set up an online account connecting my bank account directly to the government.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I'm sure they know all about me anyway. Didn't even get a cellphone until two years ago and finally did out of necessity for multifactor authentications.
&ldquo;Keep up the excellent work summarizing the nonsense you have to wade through. You're the best! Thank you.&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;Dave &amp; co. &mdash; Commiserating with you as I bump about, burn electricity and other forms of precious energy at &lsquo;5:00 a.m. DST&rsquo; in early September.
[Gee, we didn&rsquo;t expect someone to write about daylight saving time until closer to time change in November but&hellip;]
&ldquo;My thoughts turn to those households with children trying to get them up and going in the dark. Must be simply awful.
&ldquo;When will the folly that is DST be acknowledged and abandoned?
&ldquo;Nets us absolutely nothing other than an even more unbalanced, sleep-deprived, discombobulated populace.
&ldquo;Might seem like a little thing, but abandoning DST could go a long way to putting our country back on a better path. Thanks.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Where I live it&rsquo;s only a few more days before sunrise is at 7:45. Madness &mdash; and it only gets worse through the first week of November!
As was the case in previous years, there&rsquo;s legislation in Congress to do away with time change. Unfortunately, both the House and Senate versions of the bill would enact year-round DST &mdash; which was already tried once during the 1974 energy crisis and everyone hated it.
For the moment, both bills are still tied up in committee. We&rsquo;ll stay on top of it&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
P.S. As long as we&rsquo;re linking to some of our greatest hits today, let&rsquo;s not overlook the fact it&rsquo;s the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/a-totalitarian-bureaucracy-within-our-shores">Here is our 2023 commemoration</a>.

Mirrors

With the passage of less than 24 hours, there’s a hall-of-mirrors quality to the murder of Charlie Kirk — one that might never go away.

Charlie Kirk: Hall of Mirrors

<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" />America&rsquo;s Fate in Taiwan&rsquo;s Fabs
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Taiwan today stands at the eye of an innovation and military superstorm. The world&rsquo;s most advanced chips are produced on a single island within missile range of China&rsquo;s coast.
On one front, Taiwan anchors the global semiconductor supply chain. On the other, it is racing to deter an increasingly assertive Beijing with asymmetric military strategies.
To reduce reliance on Taiwan, the U.S. &mdash; in partnership with chip giant TSMC &mdash; is pouring billions into new fabrication plants in Arizona. But these facilities don&rsquo;t run themselves.
&ldquo;America invented the semiconductor integrated circuit. But for decades, America shipped its semiconductor expertise overseas,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s science-and-technology expert Ray Blanco. &ldquo;Now the bill has come due, and we're scrambling to get our expertise back before it&rsquo;s too late.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3w0pdGdepcGyjsc0rN4Yqy/6ec1b0f5ff9fb06f6941ad36a28bb721/RapidResponse.png" alt="rapid response" width="540px" />
The shortage isn&rsquo;t in equipment &mdash; it&rsquo;s in expertise. &ldquo;Every two weeks, charter flights carrying 300 Taiwanese engineers and their families have been touching down at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport,&rdquo; Ray notes. &ldquo;These aren't routine business trips. They're emergency knowledge transfers.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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;Chipmaking is more than equipment &mdash; it's about people understanding the thousands of variables that determine whether a fabrication process succeeds or fails,&rdquo; Ray adds.
&ldquo;This knowledge can't be downloaded or learned from textbooks. It exists in the minds of a relatively few people globally, most of whom work for companies based in Taiwan.&rdquo;
As editor Sean Ring at our sister e-letter The Rude Awakening comments: &ldquo;If OPEC had us by the throat in the &rsquo;70s, TSMC has us by the brainstem now.
&ldquo;One company on one island &mdash; an island Beijing swears is theirs &mdash; makes the chips that run your phone, your bank, your car, your grid, your weapons and your AI.
&ldquo;This isn&rsquo;t hyperbole. Taiwan&rsquo;s TSMC is the only foundry on Earth that can mass-produce the most advanced semiconductors at scale,&rdquo; says Sean. &ldquo;Every Nvidia chip powering AI, every Apple M-series chip running your laptop, every AMD part the Pentagon leans on &mdash; fabricated there. Without Taiwan, America&rsquo;s AI dreams collapse like a house of cards.&rdquo;
And Taiwan&rsquo;s grip on chipmaking doesn&rsquo;t just drive earnings; it shapes America&rsquo;s national priorities. But the dependence cuts both ways.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 Arizona fabs rely on Taiwanese engineers, Taiwan itself leans heavily on U.S. technology for defense. At the heart of Taiwan&rsquo;s strategy is a &ldquo;high-low&rdquo; drone doctrine: pairing expensive cruise missiles with swarms of cheap, expendable drones.
The goal, the South China Morning Post reports, is to &ldquo;exhaust enemy defenses&rdquo; and still strike deep inside mainland China. Taiwan&rsquo;s Ministry of National Defense aims to field nearly 50,000 drones by 2027 &mdash; treating them as &ldquo;expendable munitions.&rdquo;
But bottlenecks remain. Asia Times highlights gaps in training and logistics: &ldquo;Taiwan&rsquo;s limited training infrastructure and logistical base may reduce operational effectiveness,&rdquo; with audits pointing to shortfalls in operator qualifications and night-flight readiness. To close this expertise gap, Taiwan is turning to American partners.
Its state-run defense lab has signed a deal with Auterion, a U.S. software company whose drone systems proved their worth in Ukraine. That software is already being built into drones made by Taiwan&rsquo;s Thunder Tiger, including a 25,000-unit run of its &ldquo;Overkill&rdquo; model.
Other U.S. defense firms &mdash; like Boeing&rsquo;s Insitu and Shield AI &mdash; are also contributing technology, drawing Beijing&rsquo;s sanctions in the process.
Military ties are deepening too. This summer, more than 500 Taiwanese troops joined U.S. forces in Michigan during the National Guard&rsquo;s Northern Strike exercises. Meanwhile, Washington has quietly stationed about 500 U.S. personnel in Taiwan &mdash; a visible expansion of defense cooperation.
Overseeing these initiatives is the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT). AIT director Raymond Greene argues that U.S. research combined with Taiwan&rsquo;s manufacturing base can boost both deterrence and industrial growth.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> For all the new cooperation in drones and defense, Sean and Ray warn that Taiwan&rsquo;s premier chipmaker, TSMC, isn&rsquo;t just a business &mdash; it&rsquo;s both a shield and a vulnerability.
&ldquo;The so-called &lsquo;Silicon Shield&rsquo; is supposed to deter China from attacking &mdash; because why would Beijing destroy the very factories they need? But China doesn&rsquo;t need to destroy TSMC. They just need to control it,&rdquo; Sean says.
Ray adds: &ldquo;America faces a technological sovereignty crisis that decades of outsourcing created and only emergency measures can now solve. They&rsquo;re lifelines for maintaining technological independence if the current system fails.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s the paradox at the heart of the Taiwan question. Silicon is both deterrent and temptation &mdash; the reason Beijing might hesitate to invade, and the very prize it would seize if it did. No amount of Arizona fabs or drone fleets can erase that risk.
As the world eyes Taiwan, it isn&rsquo;t just war or peace on the line. It&rsquo;s the backbone of the global economy. From AI to energy grids, from smartphones to weapons systems, the future runs on Taiwanese silicon. And with each passing month, the hand hovering over this &lsquo;kill switch&rsquo; holds greater sway over war, peace and prosperity.
<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" />No Relief for the Middle Class
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Inflation chipped away at Americans&rsquo; earnings last year, leaving most households no better off than before the pandemic, according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
The bureau reports that inflation-adjusted median household income was $83,730 in 2024, essentially unchanged from 2023. That figure is roughly the same as in 2019, showing how rising prices have erased gains from a brief post-pandemic recovery.
Not all groups were affected equally. Households at the top of the income ladder saw a 4.2% increase, while changes for middle- and lower-income families weren&rsquo;t statistically significant. Incomes for Black households fell, while they rose for Asian and Hispanic households. Men working full-time saw a 3.7% gain; women&rsquo;s earnings showed no meaningful change.
The poverty rate also held steady. By one broad measure, which includes taxes, government aid and essential expenses, 12.9% of Americans &mdash; or 43.7 million people &mdash; lived in poverty in 2024. Rates were higher for seniors, at 15%, and for Black Americans, at 20.7%. The narrower official measure, which only counts pretax income, showed 10.6% in poverty.
&ldquo;The middle class is tapped out,&rdquo; says Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, warning that households have little cushion if prices climb further.
The report highlights the economic backdrop at the end of the Biden administration. But with growth slowing and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/911-000-jobs-erased">job numbers weakening,</a> the very concerns that helped return Donald Trump to the White House show little sign of easing.
<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" />Gold Enters Uncharted Territory
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Gold has surpassed its inflation-adjusted record high that stood for 45 years. This means when adjusted to today&rsquo;s dollars &mdash; accounting for decades of inflation &mdash; gold prices are now higher than ever before.
The previous real-terms peak dated back to January 1980 when gold hit its historical zenith, $850 per ounce, in purchasing power terms.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1XtKZR9dUUc7Q6qA4jm1wA/69fa976b9e367c5987e487bae5c18354/Barchart-09-10.png" alt="barchart" width="540px" />
Adjusting for inflation gives a clearer picture of what gold is really worth. By topping its 45-year inflation-adjusted peak, gold has moved into uncharted territory, highlighting its lasting role as a safe haven for wealth, especially during times of economic uncertainty.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> At the time of writing, gold&rsquo;s priced at $3,680.90 per ounce. Silver? Up 0.65% to $41.60. As for oil, crude&rsquo;s up 2.15% to $64 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate.
In terms of stocks, the S&amp;P 500 set a new record high today &mdash; the index is up 0.35% presently to 6,535 &mdash; this as Wall Street interprets bad news (see PPI below) to mean the Fed will cut rates at its meeting later this month. The tech-heavy Nasdaq, meanwhile, has gained 0.20% to 21,915. But the Big Board&rsquo;s down 0.55% to 45,450.
<ul>
<li>Wholesale inflation, measured by the Producer Price Index (PPI), slipped 0.1% in August even as economists expected PPI to rise 0.1% for the month. Year-over-year, PPI is still running hot at 2.6%, with the core gauge &mdash; excluding food and energy &mdash; up 2.8%, proving price pressures aren&rsquo;t going away anytime soon.</li>
</ul>
Last, we mention the crypto market: Bitcoin and Ethereum are both up about 2% to $113,725 and $4,375 respectively.
<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" />When Trade Wars Issue Refunds
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 a rare procedural step, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to swiftly review President Trump&rsquo;s sweeping tariffs, consolidating two major cases &mdash; Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump and VOS Selections Inc. v. Trump &mdash; and scheduling oral arguments for the first week of November 2025.
Lower courts <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/tariffs-on-trial">struck down</a> significant portions of Trump&rsquo;s tariffs. A federal appeals court issued a 7-4 ruling in August, concluding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) does not permit the president to unilaterally impose tariffs without congressional approval.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of International Trade also found &ldquo;Liberation Day&rdquo; and reciprocal tariffs exceeded presidential power under IEEPA.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warns if the Supreme Court upholds these lower-court decisions, the government could be legally required to refund between $750 billion&ndash;1 trillion in duties already collected.
<ul>
<li>This wouldn&rsquo;t happen automatically. Instead, importers who already paid duties would file claims through the U.S. Customs and Border Protection which administers tariff collections. Bessent points to the scale of potential outflows the Treasury would be forced to finance if courts say importers deserve their money back.</li>
</ul>
Big picture, the outcome of this expedited Supreme Court decision will influence much more than trade policy &mdash; it may redefine the boundaries of executive fiscal authority under emergency laws, setting a key constitutional precedent.
<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 Skin-Crawling Crawl Space Secret
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 a twist that sounds plucked from a low-budget horror film, a 40-year-old man was discovered secretly living in the crawl space beneath a home near Portland, Oregon. 
Neighbors had been alarmed by odd noises, prompting a call to local authorities. On Sept. 3, deputies from Clackamas County responded after a witness spotted an unfamiliar person entering the back of the house and, moments later, eerie lights flickering from below.
Gaining the homeowner&rsquo;s approval, officers forced open the locked door to the crawl space to find Beniamin Bucur in situ&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4Llux46buVdNHeCArncldT/45883c888001f4d7ca7474a906fca721/office.png" alt="office" width="400px" />

Source: Clackamas County Sheriff&rsquo;s Office
&hellip; complete with a makeshift bed, lighting, a TV set plugged in via extension cord and even charging devices. The surprises continued (possibly?) when police uncovered drug paraphernalia during their sweep.
Bucur now faces charges including trespassing, theft of utilities and possession of methamphetamine, with bail set at $75,000.
File this one under: You know the housing shortage is bad when&hellip;
Take care, reader!
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

Flights

Taiwan’s grip on chipmaking doesn’t just drive earnings; it shapes America’s national priorities. But the dependence cuts both ways.

Flight Tracker: Taipei --> Phoenix

<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" />911,000 Jobs Erased
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Another year, another massive reset to the government job numbers.
This morning the wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued their annual &ldquo;benchmark&rdquo; revisions to the market-moving job numbers it releases on the first Friday of each month.
No one gave a hoot about these revisions until last year &mdash; when the BLS subtracted 818,000 jobs for the period April 2023&ndash;March 2024. In other words, &ldquo;job creation&rdquo; that had been advertised at a blistering pace of 242,000 per month was actually more like 174,000.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 timing of the revisions last year was just as consequential as the numbers themselves. 
For one thing, a presidential election was only months away. Republicans accused the Biden administration of cooking the books to generate sunny headlines every month &mdash; only to quietly release the &ldquo;real&rdquo; numbers later in hopes that Democrats would hold onto the White House.
(Plausible? Absolutely. Evidence? None yet.)
For another thing, a Federal Reserve meeting was only weeks away. Arguably, the extreme revisions gave the Fed cover to cut the fed funds rate by a half percentage point &mdash; a super-sized cut that, once again, Republicans argued was being done to shore up the Democrats&rsquo; election prospects.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 here we are today with this year&rsquo;s model of the revisions.
The BLS subtracted an even bigger number of jobs &mdash; 911,000 for the period April 2024&ndash;March 2025.
In other words, &ldquo;job creation&rdquo; that had been advertised at a meager pace of 147,000 a month was actually a pitiful 71,000.
The Trump White House cast doubt on the numbers even before their release: &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not sure what these people who collect the data have been doing,&rdquo; said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Why is the administration so defensive? The revisions cover only the first 10 weeks or so of the Trump 47 presidency. Besides, Trump fired the head of the BLS last month after the July job numbers were disappointing. (The new head of the BLS awaits Senate confirmation.)
Part of the problem is for whatever reason, businesses don&rsquo;t respond to BLS surveys in the numbers they did pre-pandemic. Or they respond weeks or months after the fact, and then the statisticians have to go back and adjust.
In any event, next year&rsquo;s revisions will be especially interesting. As mentioned <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/apples-usd55-billion-war-chest">in yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>, the U.S. border has been effectively closed since spring &mdash; on the heels of an enormous influx of migrants starting in 2021. The U.S. economy might not need as many &ldquo;new jobs&rdquo; each month as previously 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" />Anyway, this year&rsquo;s revisions come only eight days before the Federal Reserve makes its next call on interest rates.
Looking at the futures markets this morning, traders are not pricing in a super-sized cut this time. There&rsquo;s only an 8% probability.
But a quarter-percentage point cut is in the bag: There&rsquo;s a 92% probability the Fed will trim the fed funds rate from 4.5% to 4.25%.
Conceivably those odds will change again before the end of the week: Thursday brings the official inflation numbers &mdash; also from the BLS.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> One more note about the job market before we move on: In small-business America, good help is still hard to find.
The National Federation of Independent Business is out with its monthly Small Business Optimism Index. The headline optimism number for August rings in at 100.8. That&rsquo;s four-straight months above the index&rsquo;s long-term average &mdash; and we do mean long term because the NFIB has conducted this survey since 1973.
&ldquo;Optimism increased slightly in August,&rdquo; says NFIB chief economist Bill Dunkelberg &mdash; &ldquo;with more owners reporting stronger sales expectations and improved earnings. While owners have cited an improvement in overall business health, labor quality remained the top issue on Main Street.&rdquo;
Yes. The NFIB survey includes a section where owners are asked to identify their single most important problem. &ldquo;Quality of labor&rdquo; came out on top, cited by 21% of respondents. Good help is still hard to find even though the &ldquo;Great Resignation&rdquo; of 2021&ndash;22 is now a distant memory. Unfilled openings were especially plentiful last month in construction, manufacturing and transportation.
Taxes came in second place, cited by 17% of respondents as their single most important problem. Inflation was cited by 11% and poor sales by 10%. By recent standards, &ldquo;poor sales&rdquo; has been elevated for four straight months.
<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 Newest and Best Backdoor to SpaceX
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 down-on-its-heels company best known for launching the Dish Network satellite TV service in the 1990s is suddenly &ldquo;the most exciting stock in the market,&rdquo; says colleague Davis Wilson at our sister e-letter The Million Mission.
EchoStar Corp. (SATS) announced a massive deal yesterday: SpaceX will pay the company $17 billion for valuable wireless spectrum that SpaceX needs to build out its Starlink satellite broadband service.
SATS will collect $8.5 billion in cash&hellip; and $8.5 billion in SpaceX equity.
That&rsquo;s $8.5 billion in SpaceX ownership&hellip; for a company whose market cap before this announcement was $22 billion.
Are you putting two and two together?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 announcement &ldquo;instantly makes EchoStar the newest &mdash; and arguably the best &mdash; way for investors to get exposure to SpaceX stock without waiting for an IPO,&rdquo; says Davis.
&ldquo;With EchoStar&rsquo;s market cap sitting around $22 billion, nearly 40% of its value could soon be tied directly to Elon Musk&rsquo;s rocket company.&rdquo;
SATS stock is a way better means to get exposure to SpaceX than the ETFs that include SpaceX in their holdings. (One trades at a ridiculous 4x multiple to net asset value; the other holds only 7% of its assets in SpaceX.)
EchoStar&rsquo;s deal with SpaceX comes on the heels of another deal with AT&amp;T &mdash; which is paying the company $23 billion for another slice of wireless spectrum.
&ldquo;For a company with roughly $27 billion in debt, these back-to-back deals are transformative,&rdquo; Davis writes. &ldquo;The cash infusion helps clean up EchoStar&rsquo;s balance sheet while the SpaceX equity gives it a long-term growth engine.
&ldquo;In one stroke, management took EchoStar from a heavily leveraged satellite operator with big question marks to a company holding one of the most coveted private assets in the world.&rdquo;
Yes, EchoStar still has much to prove. Its core business &ldquo;has struggled with declining growth and stiff competition,&rdquo; Davis acknowledges.
But if SpaceX continues to deliver, &ldquo;EchoStar&rsquo;s position could multiply in value.
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s why I view EchoStar as the most exciting stock in the market right now.&rdquo;
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> As for the broad market today, there&rsquo;s little reaction to the job revisions.
At 6,493 the S&amp;P 500 has barely budged from yesterday&rsquo;s close. Likewise the Dow and the Nasdaq haven&rsquo;t moved more than a tenth of a percent. But there&rsquo;s no joy in small-cap land, the Russell 2000 down 1%.
Crude popped over a buck to $63.34 amid new tensions in the Middle East: Israel fired missiles on the Gulf sheikdom of Qatar &mdash; where Hamas negotiators were staying amid on-again, off-again ceasefire talks. (Guess they&rsquo;re off again&hellip;)
Not much action among the major cryptos &mdash; Bitcoin under $112,000 and Ethereum at $4,300.
Meanwhile, gold is consolidating yesterday&rsquo;s big gain at $3,643 &mdash; but silver has slipped back under $41. Once more, precious metals have delivered profits to a slice of our readership: Pro-level subscribers to Rickards&rsquo; Strategic Intelligence bagged 260% gains yesterday playing calls on GDX, the big gold-miner ETF.
We&rsquo;ll stay with precious metals for Bullet No. 3&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" />The Gold Tax
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> &ldquo;The government doesn&rsquo;t want you invested in gold, because that ties up your money,&rdquo; writes author and former investment banker Carol Roth at Fox Business.
&ldquo;It means you don&rsquo;t loan it to the government. It means you don&rsquo;t invest in stocks that you may trade in and out of and generate more taxable profits to add to government revenues. They want your money flowing through the economy in a way where they can extract benefits for themselves. Choosing gold over the long-term means they don&rsquo;t benefit.&rdquo;
And so the government imposes a powerful disincentive to own precious metals. Longtime owners of precious metals already know about it; neophytes are only now starting to learn about it.
&ldquo;Precious metals, including gold, are characterized by the IRS as collectibles,&rdquo; Roth writes. &ldquo;The same goes for exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that are physically backed by gold or other precious metals.&rdquo;
Capital gains on collectibles face a top tax rate of 28% &mdash; substantially more than the 20% rate you pay on the gains from stocks held longer than one year.
&ldquo;The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have been cavalier about your money &mdash; derelict in their duty to protect the value of the dollar, which means protecting the purchasing power of the money you have earned,&rdquo; Ms. Roth reminds us.
&ldquo;If you want to try to neutralize that impact by holding some gold or silver, you shouldn&rsquo;t be punished when you want to use that alternative money for a purchase, for example. You certainly should not receive a penalty that exceeds that of stock gains.&rdquo;
Alas, there&rsquo;s no movement on Capitol Hill to equalize the tax treatment &mdash; and no push from the direction of the White House, either. Nonetheless, it&rsquo;s &ldquo;bad policy whose time has come for an update.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s an important proviso that Roth does not mention: The collectibles tax does not apply if you hold gold in a tax-advantaged retirement account like an IRA or 401(k). All your gains accrue tax-free until withdrawal.
That&rsquo;s the good news. The bad news is that no matter what you&rsquo;re invested in, your withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income!
<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: Workplace Edition
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />We can&rsquo;t vouch for the authenticity of this signage, but we share it anyway&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7MLh6GESd4Mw09LlFYlRHZ/a8fce5e6de697da83859e632fa5df03f/ComicSans.png" alt="comic sans" 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: About That White House Dinner&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" /> We got a lengthy if heartfelt plea from a reader. We have to truncate it for space.
&ldquo;America&rsquo;s slide into dystopia is accelerating. Watching the wealthiest and most powerful tech leaders groveling before Trump and Melania at last week&rsquo;s White House dinner floored me.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re not surprised when sycophantic cabinet members line up to heap praise and court favor &mdash; that&rsquo;s sadly become expected. But when the titans of industry, people with unimaginable resources and influence, do the same?&rdquo;
The reader refers to this gathering with Trump and his wife flanked on one side by Mark Zuckerberg and on the other by Bill Gates. The Sherwood news site &mdash; an arm of the Robinhood brokerage &mdash; put out this helpful annotated guide to who was at the table.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/iPY9qZeHvbIg6aUkyv3gP/032a13784a155a659157c268000436af/Sherwood.jpg" alt="sherwood" width="540px" />
&ldquo;The signal was clear,&rdquo; the reader goes on: &ldquo;profits and access matter more than principle, even for those who can afford to stand on principle.
&ldquo;I see the same sentiment echoed in the investment advisories I monitor. The consistent refrain is: &lsquo;Never let politics get in the way of profit.&rsquo; No matter what Trump does &mdash; tariffs, deficits, spending sprees, even dismantling institutions and destroying industries &mdash; the advice is always the same: Don&rsquo;t fight it, profit from it. In other words, get on board, even if the ship is sinking.&rdquo;
&ldquo;If integrity is alive anywhere, the story isn&rsquo;t finished. And the future doesn&rsquo;t belong to the sycophants and profiteers &mdash; it belongs to those with the courage to stand when standing costs the most.
&ldquo;Please continue to stand.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Your plea presumes that the people at the table had an ounce of integrity before Trump won a second term.
I refer you to an edition published <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/altman-and-karp-shape-shifting-scum">barely a month into the Trump 47 administration</a> &mdash; in which I hit out at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Palantir CEO Alex Karp. Both of them aligned with/kowtowed to Democrats when they were in power &mdash; only to turn on a dime after Trump&rsquo;s reelection.
Zuckerberg flip-flopped as well although as I said at the time, I&rsquo;m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
As for the ethics of investing&hellip; the problem for us as publishers is that no matter what company or asset class comes under our editors&rsquo; microscope, someone will likely have an objection.
If we screen for everyone&rsquo;s potential objections, we&rsquo;ll be left with precious little to recommend. So we leave it to readers &mdash; and let their consciences be their guide.
Investing is a dicey affair <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/9-11-the-financial-crisis-and-covid#4">amid any Fourth Turning</a>, such as we&rsquo;re experiencing now. As long as you recognize no one&rsquo;s coming to save us, you&rsquo;re off to a good start!
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

Another year, another massive reset to the government job numbers.

911,000 Jobs Erased {pencil emoji}

911,000 Jobs Erased ✏️

<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" />Apple&rsquo;s $55 Billion War Chest
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Another year, another Apple product rollout&hellip; and another collective yawn from the financial and tech media, always overlooking the real story.
Shortly after Labor Day is when Apple CEO Tim Cook presides over the company&rsquo;s annual dog-and-pony show.
This year&rsquo;s event is set for tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. EDT. The marquee announcement, to hear the mainstream tell it, is a newer, thinner &ldquo;iPhone 17 Air&rdquo; to go alongside the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro.
The media are underwhelmed: &ldquo;Consumers are only upgrading when they feel new features are worth it,&rdquo; says CNN &mdash; &ldquo;and that&rsquo;s happening less often now, according to market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners&hellip;
&ldquo;Apple hasn&rsquo;t done a seismic iPhone X-style rethinking of its phones since, well, 2017&rsquo;s iPhone X,&rdquo; says Ars Technica.
&ldquo;The rumor mill thinks that Apple is working on a foldable iPhone &mdash; and such a device would certainly benefit from years of investment in the iPad &mdash; but if it's coming, it probably won't be this year.&rdquo;
Even the Apple-centric site MacRumors can&rsquo;t exhibit much excitement: &ldquo;The &zwnj;iPhone 17 Air&zwnj;'s display will measure in at 6.6 inches, and there are rumors that all &zwnj;iPhone 17&zwnj; models could support 120Hz ProMotion refresh rates, meaning that would no longer be a feature only for the Pro models.&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" />In addition, CNN can&rsquo;t resist taking a swipe at Apple&rsquo;s perceived deficiencies when it comes to AI.
&ldquo;Unlike Android rivals Samsung and Google, which have leaned into artificial intelligence on their smartphone software, Apple Intelligence is expected to take a back seat during Tuesday&rsquo;s event, even as perceptions continue that the company lags in AI&hellip;
&ldquo;Earlier this year, Apple delayed a high-profile update that would have enabled Siri to act across apps and answer questions about content on your phone&rsquo;s screen. The feature would have brought Siri up to speed with more sophisticated AI agents like Google&rsquo;s Gemini and OpenAI&rsquo;s ChatGPT.&rdquo;
What the mainstream is overlooking is the possibility &mdash; even the high probability &mdash; that Apple will move to leapfrog the competition with a strategic buyout.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;re very open to M&amp;A [mergers and acquisitions] that accelerates our roadmap,&rdquo; Cook said this summer.
And why not, with $55 billion in cash and cash equivalents on its balance sheet? And at a time the buyout market is hotter than at any time since the record-breaking year of 2021?
A buyout is what Paradigm&rsquo;s James Altucher sees coming soon &mdash; even in conjunction with the iPhone announcement tomorrow. And he&rsquo;s pinpointed one tiny AI company that&rsquo;s the most likely candidate.
Subscribers to Altucher&rsquo;s True Alpha are already clued in to this opportunity. If you&rsquo;re not among them, you owe it to yourself to check out James&rsquo; latest presentation. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2476000">Make sure you watch it now before Apple&rsquo;s announcement tomorrow.</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" />About Those &ldquo;Weak&rdquo; Job Numbers&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" /> What if the August job numbers aren&rsquo;t as weak as they seem?
As mentioned here Friday, the wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured a measly 22,000 new jobs for the month. The July and June numbers were revised down.
Overall monthly job creation averaged 111,000 in the first quarter&hellip; 55,000 in the second quarter&hellip; and 51,000 so far in the third.
For a long time, we&rsquo;ve mentioned that the country generally needs at least 150,000 new jobs a month to keep up with population growth &mdash; and more recently, it&rsquo;s perhaps closer to 200,000.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> But the U.S. border has been effectively closed since last spring &mdash; after an enormous influx of migrants, both legal and otherwise, going back to 2021.
As a result, researchers at both the American Enterprise Institute and the Peterson Institute have concluded the &ldquo;breakeven rate&rdquo; of monthly job growth is much lower now than in years gone by.
As Peterson economist Jed Kolko puts it, &ldquo;The same monthly job gain that once signaled economic stagnation now indicates the economy is keeping pace with a much slower-growing workforce.&rdquo;
But conventional wisdom hasn&rsquo;t caught up to this new reality. Thus, the Federal Reserve sees a dramatically slowing job market and will likely respond by cutting interest rates later this month.
But what if it&rsquo;s not actually necessary? And what if a rate cut winds up reigniting the fires of inflation instead?
Stay tuned&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" /> Indeed, the rising odds of a Fed rate cut are giving gold a lift as a new week begins.
The bid is up $50 as we write, in record territory at $3,635. Silver&rsquo;s looking solid too, back over $41. Congratulations are in order for Rickards&rsquo; Insider Intel readers who bagged 103% gains this morning playing call options on a major silver miner. A clean double in just one month &mdash; and that&rsquo;s just the first half of the trade!
As for the stock market, the S&amp;P 500 is flirting with record territory again, up over a third of a percent at last check and back over 6,500. The Dow&rsquo;s gain is weaker, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s stronger.
Crude has rallied over 1% to $62.60. Bitcoin is stuck in the mud under $113,000 while Ethereum is staging a mild rally at $4,377.
<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" />Bogus Solutions to the Baby 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 Heritage Foundation thinks it has the answer to declining fertility rates.
The U.S. fertility rate has hit historic lows &mdash; under 1.6 children per woman last year, according to new figures from the CDC. In general, 2.1 is considered the &ldquo;replacement rate&rdquo; that keeps the population level stable.
A few days ago, The Washington Post got its hands on a five-page draft summary of a policy paper that Heritage has in the works. It blames the baby bust on &ldquo;free love, pornography, careerism, the Pill, abortion, same-sex relations and no-fault divorce,&rdquo; while calling for a &ldquo;Manhattan Project to restore the nuclear family.&rdquo;
Among the solutions it&rsquo;s recommending to the Trump administration&hellip;
<ul>
<li>New government-seeded savings accounts for married people</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Redirecting child-care funding away from programs like Head Start and toward individual families</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>An executive order requiring all proposed government policies and rules to &ldquo;measure their positive or negative impacts on marriage and family.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
If this all sounds like government getting up in people&rsquo;s business&hellip; well, it is.
One of the Post&rsquo;s anonymous sources described an internal debate going into the document&rsquo;s preparation. &ldquo;That paper is not a compromise between the limited government folks and the big government folks. It is an outright steamrolling of the limited government folks.&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" /> Heritage is glossing over the real problem &mdash; one your editor addressed head-on last year when JD Vance made news with <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/in-defense-of-childless-cat-ladies">his remarks about &ldquo;childless cat ladies.&rdquo;</a>
The real problem is highlighted by a new and depressing Wall Street Journal-NORC survey&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Only 25% of Americans believe they have &ldquo;a good chance of improving their standard of living&rdquo; &mdash; an all-time low in data going back to 1987</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Nearly 70% believe hard work does not translate to getting ahead &mdash; a low in 15 years of survey data</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>And most revealing&hellip; Over 75% doubt that children today will live a better life than their parents.</li>
</ul>
If you don&rsquo;t believe your kids will live a better life than you&hellip; well, that&rsquo;s a powerful disincentive to have kids in the first place, right?
That problem doesn&rsquo;t get solved by new government-funded savings accounts.
It gets solved only when a middle-class lifestyle becomes affordable once again, and on a single income.
That means, among other things, an end to the health care cartel and the higher-education racket.
But there are too many vested interests in those sectors &mdash; some of which undoubtedly stroke big checks to fund Heritage&rsquo;s budget.
<blockquote>➢ Never forget: Its conservative reputation notwithstanding, Heritage is the outfit that came up with the "individual mandate&rdquo; to buy health insurance &mdash; the cornerstone of Obamacare.</blockquote>
<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" />On the subject of your ever-dwindling purchasing power&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6qU6H7FyvFrXFUumFz2dyh/d92cf4da650ab587988ead53df2da45a/USDollar.png" alt="US dollar" width="540px" />
On a more serious note, we've been having some internal discussions here at Paradigm Press this morning &mdash; expecting a resurgence in the inflation rate.
The official number has been stuck in a channel between 2.4% on the low side and 3% on the high side for more than a year.
Get ready for that number to climb back above 3%. More to come in the days and weeks ahead&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" />Backdoor to a CBDC?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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;Stablecoins,&rdquo; says the subject line of a pithy reader email, evidently arriving from abroad.
&ldquo;I hear your government just signed into law your new currency attached to your debt and blockchain. Are you happy that the government can now see exactly what you spend your money on?&rdquo;
Dave responds: I don&rsquo;t think your concern is altogether misplaced.
On the campaign trail last year, Donald Trump <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trump-takes-a-stand-cbdcs">took a firm stand against a CBDC</a>, or central bank digital currency.
&ldquo;Such a currency would give a federal government &mdash; our federal government &mdash; absolute control over your money,&rdquo; he said on a campaign stop in New Hampshire. &ldquo;They could take your money and you wouldn&rsquo;t even know it&rsquo;s gone.&rdquo;
But as 2024 eased into 2025, I couldn&rsquo;t shake the thought that stablecoins might serve as a backdoor CBDC.
The independent economist Martin Armstrong gave voice to my qualms over the summer, pointing to a provision in the now-law GENIUS Act. From the text of the legislation&hellip;
<blockquote>A permitted payment stablecoin issuer shall be treated as a financial institution [and]&hellip;shall be subject to all federal laws applicable to a financial institution located in the United States including&hellip; policies and procedures to block, freeze and reject specific or impermissible transactions that violate federal or state laws, rules or regulations&hellip;</blockquote>
&ldquo;This provision,&rdquo; writes Mr. Armstrong, &ldquo;is not intended to protect the world against drug smugglers and thieves. This provision is intended to grant government unlimited control over how people spend stablecoins.&rdquo;
Adds Bitcoin Magazine editor Mark Goodwin: &ldquo;Stablecoins can be programmed. Exactly like how we fear CBDCs will be programmed. They&rsquo;re exactly the same tokenized mechanism&hellip; They can be taken out of your wallet. Your wallet can be blacklisted. A lot of the things that we fear about CBDCs are totally available within the tool set of stablecoins.&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" /> A small step toward that digital cattle pen comes at the end of this month &mdash; when the federal government will stop issuing paper checks for Social Security, tax refunds, payments to contractors &mdash; pretty much everything.
There&rsquo;s been some protest, but to no avail: &ldquo;From the elderly to the Amish, and from legal migrant workers to those who are simply skeptical of anything related to the federal government, there are people filing taxes, paying bills and collecting government checks without access to computers, much less bank accounts,&rdquo; says a recent Washington Times story.
&ldquo;The reasons are always the same,&rdquo; Jim Rickards wrote his Strategic Intelligence readers last week &mdash; &ldquo;convenience and cost.
&ldquo;But the result is still a loss of privacy since checks are more difficult to monitor than electronic payments.&rdquo;
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

Apple-chest

Another year, another Apple product rollout… and another collective yawn from the financial and tech media, always overlooking the real story.

Apple’s $55 Billion War Chest

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Trump&rsquo;s Tariffs, Modi&rsquo;s Gold
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Washington&rsquo;s latest squeeze play on India looks less like strategy and more like self-sabotage. 
The Trump administration slapped 25% tariffs on Indian goods earlier this summer, then doubled down with a 50% hit when New Delhi refused to cut back on Russian oil imports.
The result? India didn&rsquo;t fold. It doubled down too &mdash; buying more discounted crude, shifting more of its reserves into gold and trimming U.S. Treasury holdings by about $15 billion over the past year.
That gold bet is no token move. India&rsquo;s reserves climbed from 840.76 tonnes in mid-2024 to nearly 880 tonnes this year. At a time when the U.S. needs loyal buyers of its debt, one of the biggest emerging economies is swapping Treasuries for bullion.
India&rsquo;s reallocation mirrors <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/you-should-own-more-silver#2">dynamics</a> we mentioned earlier this week: Central banks diversifying away from dollar-denominated assets and reducing exposure to Washington&rsquo;s risky spending and debt issues.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Instead of isolating India, American pressure is pushing it closer to the very rivals D.C. worries about most.
Days ago, Prime Minister Modi shared a warm handshake with Xi Jinping &mdash; which is hugely significant considering the long-standing <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/dollar-earthquake">bad blood</a> between India and China.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7FznndQBtGzQAhHzIhtAP6/93641462b8227fed655873b29f8a6d8c/Narendra.png" alt="Narendra" width="540px" />
Add to that India&rsquo;s deepening energy ties with Russia and its growing influence inside the BRICS bloc, and the picture is clear: The more Washington tariffs/sanctions the largest democracy in the world, the more New Delhi hedges.
We&rsquo;ll give the last word to one of our astute readers, who snarks: &ldquo;Maybe Trump will earn a Nobel Peace Prize after all&hellip;
&ldquo;Mending relations between India and China is no small feat! Not to mention bringing together so many nations in the BRICS alliance for the purpose of financial sovereignty.
&ldquo;Only shame is what pulling that off is going to cost America and Americans.&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" />Stupid BLS Tricks?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) drew attention this morning when it flaggedissues that threatened to delay or disrupt its August jobs report &mdash; one of the most closely watched government economic releases.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1zCCEpJm9lw6K8wnMSKOfM/3d5229641a82be55dd5e98aba1ab769a/Sorry.png" alt="sorry" width="350px" />
Such hiccups are rare, but fuel speculation about the reliability of the data, especially after major downward revisions and questionable survey response rates in recent months.
In fact, the BLS reports responses to its Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey, which produces the monthly jobs report, has declined significantly since 2020, falling from 60% to around 40% in 2024&ndash;2025.
With fewer responses, the bureau relies more on statistical models (yikes), perhaps exemplified by the recent downward revisions of 258,000 combined jobs in May and June &mdash; a scale not seen since 1968.
<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" />Labor Market Loses Heat
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />The U.S. economy barely moved the needle in August, adding just 22,000 jobs. Economists indicate the country needs to add roughly 100,000&ndash;150,000 jobs per month to keep pace with population growth.
Strikingly, June&rsquo;s numbers were revised downward to show a 13,000 job loss &mdash; the first such negative monthly decline since December 2020.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5YPiFx9ECjcxMCODGQhRJj/d9734f4173e8956147d6934c791533c2/Jobs.png" alt="jobs" width="540px" />

Source: BLS, The Guardian
The only sector with notable gains was health care, which added 31,000 jobs. However, these gains were offset by declines in federal government employment (down 15,000 in August, 97,000 since January) and manufacturing (basically flat in August, but down 78,000 year-to-date).
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%, its highest level since 2021. The labor market is clearly cooling under the chill of &mdash; take your pick &mdash; Trump&rsquo;s tariffs? Corporate belt-tightening? Automation and AI?
Markets now see the odds of a Federal Reserve quarter-point rate cut in September above 80% as the weak jobs report signals the U.S. labor market is softening fast.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Predictably, stocks are sliding today &mdash; with the three major U.S. indexes entrenched in the red. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is faring best, down 0.15% to 21,670. On the other end of the spectrum, the Big Board&rsquo;s lost 0.60% to 45,365 while the S&amp;P 500 is stuck in the middle: down 0.45% to 6,475.
Surveying the commodities complex, the price of oil&rsquo;s sliding bigly &mdash; down 3% to $61.55 for a barrel of WTI. (More on that in a moment.) But it&rsquo;s a banner day for precious metals. Gold&rsquo;s setting a fresh record, up 1.25% to $3,651.80 per ounce, and silver&rsquo;s up 0.50%, hanging onto $41.60.
<ul>
<li>Treasury yields, across the board, are slumping with the 10-year note dropping more than 9 basis points to 4.08%, its lowest point since early April. The 2-year yield has fallen even further, down over 11 basis points to 3.48%. Meanwhile, the 30-year bond slipped today more than 8 basis points to 4.79%.</li>
</ul>
Finally, we have some crypto news to report: Tether, the issuer of the USDT stablecoin, is exploring investments beyond its traditional holdings by entering the gold sector. The company is in talks with groups across the gold supply chain &mdash; including miners, refiners and royalty firms &mdash; as a way to diversify.
Tether already holds $8.7 billion worth of physical gold bars, which it keeps in Zurich vaults. In June 2025, Tether invested $105 million to buy a minority stake in Elemental Altus Royalties, a company that earns income from gold mining projects. When Elemental Altus merged with another royalties firm, EMX, Tether committed another $100 million as part of that deal.
Tether CEO Paolo Ardoino described gold as &ldquo;bitcoin in nature&rdquo; during a speech at the Bitcoin 2025 conference in May. (An anonymous mining exec, heh, describes Tether as &ldquo;the weirdest company I have ever dealt with.&rdquo;)
In terms of the crypto market? Flagship crypto Bitcoin is up 0.85%, just under $111K, and Ethereum&rsquo;s up 0.50% to $4,300.&nbsp;
<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" />An Energy COP-Out
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Yesterday, ConocoPhillips (COP) announced plans to cut 20&ndash;25% of its workforce &mdash; about 3,000 jobs &mdash; prompted by rising costs and lackluster oil prices. 
Most layoffs will hit before the end of the year, with CEO Ryan Lance telling staff that &ldquo;fewer roles&rdquo; are needed as the company seeks efficiency in a tough market. COP shares immediately sank 4% on the news, capping a near-14% drop from a year ago.
The mass layoffs at ConocoPhillips reflect the larger trend unfolding across the U.S. labor market as hiring slows and companies, especially in energy, trim their sails. BP, Chevron and oil field services giant SLB all rolled out job cuts earlier this year in response to similar pressures: sagging demand, price volatility and post-pandemic inflation.
&ldquo;From the demand side, where I&rsquo;m arguing from, the International Energy Agency (IEA) notes that demand is expected to decelerate for the remainder of 2025, following a strong first quarter, due to weaker economic activity worldwide,&rdquo; editor Sean Ring notes.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Trade tensions, especially the imposition of tariffs by the U.S. and retaliatory measures by other countries, are dampening economic growth and, consequently, oil demand.
&ldquo;The recent de-escalation of Middle East tensions &mdash; such as the ceasefire between Iran and Israel &mdash; has removed the risk premium from oil prices, contributing to the decline in prices,&rdquo; he concludes.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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;Yes, oil prices are low. This means that it&rsquo;s cheaper now (!) to acquire acreage. To do geophysics. Early-phase exploration. And be prepared for the inevitable upswing,&rdquo; says Paradigm editor and geologist Byron King, taking up the other side of the argument.
&ldquo;There is no &lsquo;energy transition.&rsquo; Only energy addition,&rdquo; he continues. &ldquo;Did ConocoPhillips management buy into the idea that oil is a terminal industry? That the world will mirror California-scale idiocy?
&ldquo;COP management must not be very good. They are in the phase of corporate life when the operation is run by accountants and lawyers, although not (yet) the bankruptcy lawyers.
&ldquo;If management hates the workforce so much, then management should resign. This is not a problem caused by &lsquo;too many people,&rsquo; although there are always some no-loads in every big organization.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s more like management is out of ideas (if they ever had any). Maybe COP should self-liquidate. Sell off its assets to other companies with more ambition.&nbsp;
&ldquo;As for drill, baby, drill? Trump is in a tough spot,&rdquo; Byron concedes. &ldquo;Facile campaign slogan meets geologic reality.&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" />Zuck Meets His Match
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Imagine being punished for your name. That&rsquo;s the predicament of Indiana bankruptcy attorney Mark S. Zuckerberg &mdash; who happens to share a name with the billionaire founder of Facebook, Mark E. Zuckerberg.
For eight years, the attorney&rsquo;s social media account has been flipped on and off in the manner of a toddler playing with a light switch. Each time, Meta accuses him of &ldquo;impersonating a celebrity.&rdquo; Each time, he swears he isn&rsquo;t. After all, Mr. Zuckerberg&rsquo;s been practicing law since young Zuck was in elementary school.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7CP9xCsvCrlPcTAl6bwk9e/49988059d8ce3dcdb0048d0b56b8d673/Mark.png" alt="mark" width="450px" />

Courtesy: Mark S. Zuckerberg
The older Mark insists this is no laughing matter. He claims repeat suspensions have cost him thousands in lost business, not to mention the $11,000 he shelled out for ads that were unceremoniously yanked. He compares it to buying a billboard &mdash; only to have Meta shroud it with a blanket.
Acknowledging the error, Meta has restored his account. But only after he filed a lawsuit.
So Mark Zuckerberg had to sue Facebook&hellip; for alleging he was pretending to be Mark Zuckerberg.
Turns out, the only thing worse than having the same name as a billionaire is proving you&rsquo;re not him.
Take care, reader! Enjoy your weekend, and don&rsquo;t forget to check out Saturday&rsquo;s Gavin Newsom-centric highlights issue.
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

GoldBars2

Washington’s latest squeeze play on India looks less like strategy and more like self-sabotage. 

India’s Not Blinking 

<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" />Apple&rsquo;s Quiet Audio Secret
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Cirrus Logic was once a behind-the-scenes semiconductor company, best known for its specialized audio chips used in car stereos and early portable music devices. 
Founded in Salt Lake City in 1981 as a specialty chip designer, Cirrus spent years competing with much larger firms for space inside consumer gadgets.
But that changed dramatically in the early 2000s.
As Apple began its relentless pursuit of better device sound quality &mdash; starting with the iPod and then moving to the iPhone &mdash; engineers were searching for ultra-efficient chips to deliver crisp, reliable audio in small spaces.
Rather than relying on industry giants, Apple eventually selected Cirrus Logic for its innovative audio codec technology, quietly inserting the small firm&rsquo;s parts into its devices.
By 2010, the iPhone 4 launched with Cirrus Logic embedded inside its audio system &mdash; a transformative moment for the company.
Apple&rsquo;s endorsement was seismic&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" /> Cirrus Logic&rsquo;s net sales more than quadrupled in five years &mdash; from $174.6 million (FY2009) to $714.3 million (FY2014). And by 2014, Apple accounted for about 80% of Cirrus Logic&rsquo;s total sales.
The stock price reflected this trajectory: Cirrus shares swung from under $5 in 2008 to above $37.75 by May 2015, increasing more than 600% during major iPhone product cycles.
The partnership forced Cirrus Logic to innovate at warp speed, regularly ramping up production for each year&rsquo;s global iPhone and, later, iPad or AirPods launches.
Cirrus diversified, acquiring new chip design capabilities and branching into haptic feedback and power management for wireless devices.
The company&rsquo;s fortunes remain tightly wound to Apple, but its expertise and flexibility have carved out a niche in this brutally competitive chip sector.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Cirrus Logic&rsquo;s climb from obscurity to prominence stands as a textbook tale of supply chain &ldquo;kingmaking.&rdquo; 
Rather than inventing the next mainstream tech gadget, Cirrus focused on a single, high-impact function and delivered when Apple called. And Apple&rsquo;s relentless push for innovation means it is always searching for the next breakthrough supplier.
The history of Cirrus Logic shows how a niche supplier can be thrust into the spotlight &mdash; and enjoy dramatic gains &mdash; simply by becoming indispensable to a giant like Apple.
As Apple readies its next big iPhone announcement on Tuesday, Sept. 9, stories like Cirrus&rsquo; make it clear: The right tech partnership can change everything for a small firm.
For today&rsquo;s investors, Cirrus Logic&rsquo;s journey illustrates how quickly fortunes can shift &mdash; and why today&rsquo;s lesser-known companies could be at the threshold of Apple-fueled breakout moments.

[Ed. note: Apple&rsquo;s about to make headlines on Sept. 9 with the launch of the iPhone 17 &mdash; a radical redesign that&rsquo;s set to bring &ldquo;Apple Intelligence&rdquo; to the forefront.
But here&rsquo;s where it gets really exciting: James Altucher&rsquo;s proprietary financial AI has pinpointed a tiny tech company at the heart of this breakthrough. When Tim Cook unveils Apple&rsquo;s next big move, this little-known stock could soar.
James&rsquo; AI isn&rsquo;t guesswork &mdash; it&rsquo;s flagged &ldquo;Blue Spikes&rdquo; before 84.7% of Wall Street&rsquo;s biggest moves for nearly five years straight, with past trades delivering gains of 762%, 2,800% and even over 11,000%.
While returns like these are rare, this opportunity is extraordinary&hellip;And timing is everything. If you wait until after the announcement, it may be too late. Don&rsquo;t miss your chance. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2475036">Click here now to see the urgent details.]</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" />Labor Market Hits a Breaking Point
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 Labor Department&rsquo;s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), released Wednesday, reports 7.18 million job openings in July.
That&rsquo;s the lowest reading since September 2024 and only the second time since late 2020 that openings dipped under 7.2 million. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected closer to 7.4 million job openings.
JOLTS tracks job listings, hires and separations to give a snapshot of how strong or weak the employment picture looks across the country. When openings are high, it usually signals confidence among employers. When they fall sharply, it suggests hiring is slowing and opportunities are drying up.
This latest decline means&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4RlhWPr9zpiwGYcnBW90Ni/25a2720eeb230a16fa4ca122c3b99c49/SpencerH.png" alt="Spencer tweet" width="540px" />
That&rsquo;s a reversal from much of the past three years, when openings far exceeded job seekers and gave workers unusual leverage in the labor market.
&ldquo;This is a turning point for the labor market,&rdquo; says Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, in an interview at CNBC. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s yet another crack.&rdquo;
With fewer jobs to go around, expect the unemployment rate to rise in the months ahead. Upcoming jobless claims and Friday&rsquo;s payrolls report will offer the next test of whether this slowdown accelerates.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 ADP report today shows U.S. private employers added just 54,000 jobs in August, well below the 68,0000 economists expected. Meanwhile, initial jobless claims for the week ending Aug. 30 rose to 237,000, higher than the predicted 231,000.
<ul>
<li>The U.S. Composite PMI for August 2025 was revised down to 54.6, indicating the economy is still expanding, but at a slower pace compared to July&rsquo;s 55.1. This number measures the combined health of both the manufacturing and service sectors; any value above 50 shows growth, so 54.6 signals continued, though moderating, business activity.</li>
</ul>
Sneaking a peek at the stock market today, the three major U.S. indexes are all in the green &mdash; each up about 0.40%. At the time of writing, the Dow, S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq are sitting at 45,485, 6,475 and 21,580 respectively.
Guess the weak jobs data is bolstering market hopes for a rate cut come September&rsquo;s FOMC meeting&hellip;
Looking at commodities, oil&rsquo;s down almost 1% to $63.40 for a barrel of West Texas Intermediate. Likewise, precious metals are down: Gold&rsquo;s lost 0.65% to $3,611.10 per ounce, and silver&rsquo;s down 1.50% to $41.
Crypto&rsquo;s slumping as well. Bitcoin&rsquo;s down 2.20%, just under $110,000; Ethereum, meanwhile, is down 3.80% to $4,300.
<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 Longest Shot in D.C.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 years pretending it was fine for lawmakers to gamble in the very casino they allegedly regulate, Congress might finally be ready to lock up the dice.
On Wednesday, a bipartisan group unveiled the &ldquo;Restore Trust in Congress Act&rdquo; which would ban members of Congress, their spouses and dependent kids from owning or trading individual stocks.
Lawmakers would have 90&ndash;180 days to divest after being sworn in, and violators would pay a fine equal to 10% of the value of the trade &mdash; plus forfeit any profits.
As Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-RI) puts it: &ldquo;It is crazy to the average person that this has been allowed to go on for so long.&rdquo; Why, yes, yes it is&hellip; But &ldquo;crazy&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t begin to cover it.
Here&rsquo;s why people are fed up: More than 100 members of Congress make around 10,000 stock trades every year, according to Capitol Trades and Unusual Whales. That&rsquo;s not dabbling &mdash; that&rsquo;s day-trading!
Plus, congresscritters tend to beat the market&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" /> Hmm, it&rsquo;s almost as if voting on bills that move industries gives them an edge?!? And the trades haven&rsquo;t been subtle.
<ul>
<li>Nvidia was a favorite while Congress debated the CHIPS Act</li>
<li>Social media stocks got a workout during the TikTok ban talks</li>
<li>Defense shares moved while national security committees held hearings.</li>
</ul>
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), have racked up thousands of trades worth tens of millions of dollars, according to Capitol Trades data through July 2025&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1d8SHVgnSHfV5WXIfk1vRH/32d020d890f9850018b614051ea64599/Table.png" alt="table" width="540px" />

Source: Capitol Trades (2025)
During the first seven months of 2025, in fact, lawmakers have already logged 7,810 trades covering 362 million shares &mdash; putting 2025 on track to set a new record.
While opponents argue banning stock trading would discourage &ldquo;private-sector talent&rdquo; from running for office, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) counters: &ldquo;If you want to trade stocks go to Wall Street. Don&rsquo;t go to Congress.&rdquo;
Indeed.
We&rsquo;ll see if Congress can pass this legislation. But betting against self-interest in Congress? That&rsquo;s the longest shot in D.C.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" /> Tesla Fever Cools (Sorta)
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />South Korea&rsquo;s retail investors are backing away from Tesla (TSLA), cutting back their holdings as enthusiasm around the electric carmaker wanes.
According to Bloomberg calculations of depository data, Korean investors sold a net $657 million of Tesla shares in August &mdash; the largest monthly outflow since, at least, early 2019.
Even leveraged bets are falling out of favor. The Direxion Daily TSLA Bull 2X Shares ETF (TSLL), which provides double exposure to Tesla, saw $554 million in outflows last month.
It marks part of a broader four-month trend that has seen $1.8 billion pulled out of Tesla stock, signaling waning enthusiasm among one of the company&rsquo;s most steadfast global fan bases.
Instead, investors are chasing crypto companies, reflecting growing interest in cryptocurrencies at the expense of established U.S. tech giants
For instance, shares of Bitmine Immersion Technologies Inc., a stock viewed as a proxy for Ether, drew $253 million in net inflows last month.
&ldquo;Tesla used to offer a lot of inspiring narratives but it has failed to win people&rsquo;s hearts,&rdquo; says Han Jungsu, a 33-year-old investor who first bought Tesla stock in 2019 but sold out earlier this year.
Clearly, the company is winning drivers&rsquo; hearts&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6iZh9ajJ8YMfZxfAY9TjRc/2ca6b737d04dfb3337f1529061753018/Teslaconomics.png" alt="Teslaconomics" width="450px" />
Here&rsquo;s the buried lede: Despite the selling spree, Tesla remains the single most popular foreign stock among Korean retail investors. They still hold roughly $21.9 billion worth of shares &mdash; more than second-place Nvidia or third-place Palantir.
In other words, Korea&rsquo;s traders may be trimming their positions, but Tesla&rsquo;s grip on their portfolios (and parking garages?) remains strong.
<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" />Nostalgia: &ldquo;Super-Size It&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" />McDonald&rsquo;s is going full time warp with the resurrection of its Extra Value Meals, hoping to lure budget-conscious diners back to the Golden Arches &mdash; one combo at a time. 
Rollout begins Sept. 8, and these combos promise 15% off compared to ordering individual menu items, covering breakfast, lunch or dinner: $5 for a Sausage McMuffin With Egg with hash brown and coffee; $8 for the Big Mac deal, fries and a drink included.
Naturally, prices like these are gone for good&hellip;

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4CEgHT4Bp6RFJjWusZGkG1/d83fa261df695e916320bccb7f1a64c1/ValueMeal.png" alt="value meal" width="450px" />

Courtesy: Reddit Remember when a full meal cost less than a Starbucks coffee?
Why the throwback? With prices marching ever skyward, CEO Chris Kempczinski admits some regulars no longer see McDonald&rsquo;s as a bargain. Thus its value menu reboot, with hopes of reversing sliding sales among price-sensitive fans.
&ldquo;Extra Value Meals are an integral part of what McDonald&rsquo;s represents,&rdquo; Kempczinski tells CNBC, reminding folks of a time when ordering a combo by number actually felt like a deal.
Eight combos will make the cut, from classics like the Quarter Pounder and 10-piece Chicken McNuggets meals to revamped breakfast items. The deals last through the end of 2025 &mdash; unless McDonald&rsquo;s pulls the plug earlier (no guarantees from corporate yet).
For now, it&rsquo;s a &ldquo;No. 3&rdquo; for me &mdash; hold (some of) the regret.
We&rsquo;ll be back Friday!
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

APPL

For a small audio chipmaker, Apple’s endorsement proves seismic… 

About Apple’s Next Big Reveal

<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" />Silver&rsquo;s &ldquo;Critical&rdquo; Condition
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Back in the mid-2010s, lithium was a footnote in chemistry labs and the dreams of early Tesla enthusiasts. Uranium, after Fukushima, was considered dead weight in the energy world. 
Yet when Washington put both metals on its official Critical Minerals List, fortunes flipped almost overnight. Now another metal is poised for its own breakout moment: silver.
As Paradigm editor Chris Campbell notes: &ldquo;Silver just jumped from the kids&rsquo; table to the head of the banquet.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s because, for the first time in history, the U.S. Department of the Interior has proposed adding silver to its Critical Minerals List draft for 2025.
The decision isn&rsquo;t final &mdash; there&rsquo;s a 30-day comment period before the list is locked-in &mdash; but the signal is clear. The world&rsquo;s largest economy just declared that without silver, its future could be at risk.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> History shows what happens when a commodity makes the government&rsquo;s list. 
Uranium spent most of the 2010s languishing around $25 a pound. Then, in 2018, it quietly won a spot on the Critical Minerals List.
By 2020, the Department of Energy was pushing for a national reserve, and by 2022, the Defense Production Act was backing the entire nuclear fuel supply chain. The mantra shifted from &ldquo;cheap supply&rdquo; to &ldquo;secure supply.&rdquo; Prices followed, surging past $100 a pound by 2024.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/li">Lithium&rsquo;s story</a> is even more explosive. In 2018, lithium carbonate sold for about $7,000 a ton. Once designated critical, automakers inked long-term contracts, subsidies poured in and prices skyrocketed to $80,000 a ton by late 2022.
Even after cooling, lithium still trades at multiples of its old price. The designation &ldquo;didn&rsquo;t just nudge lithium higher,&rdquo; says Chris, &ldquo;it rewired the entire supply chain.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 [silver] designation just shines a spotlight on a fire already ablaze,&rdquo; Chris adds.
Silver, for instance, doesn&rsquo;t sit idle. It gets consumed in solar panels, electric vehicles, semiconductors and medical devices, making it both an industrial backbone and a monetary hedge.
And the numbers are striking. Global demand in 2024 was about 1.16 billion ounces, while mine supply lagged at just 820 million.
That marks the fourth-straight year of deficits, with aboveground stocks covering only two&ndash;three years at current demand. Much of that supply is locked in exchange-traded funds or private vaults.
What happens if silver makes the final list?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 playbook&rsquo;s already written: Demand surges instantly, while supply takes years to adjust. 
That&rsquo;s why uranium quadrupled and lithium went tenfold, Chris explains. With silver&rsquo;s fragmented supply chain and chronic deficits, the move could be even sharper.
Big players are already circling&hellip;
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Tech billionaire David Bateman recently took delivery of 12.7 million ounces,&rdquo; says Chris, &ldquo;about 1.5% of global annual production</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>&ldquo;Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s central bank disclosed a $40 million ETF position.&rdquo; In most commodities, those figures are minor. In silver, they&rsquo;re enough to move the needle.</li>
</ul>
Washington doesn&rsquo;t add minerals to its list lightly. &ldquo;It runs thousands of disruption models across industries &mdash; energy, defense, health, technology &mdash; and only elevates commodities where shortages could break the system.&rdquo;
<a id="2"></a>
If silver makes the cut, it will be a recognition of reality. &ldquo;Ultimately, silver doesn&rsquo;t need Washington&rsquo;s blessing,&rdquo; Chris concludes.
Silver&rsquo;s already scarce. The designation would simply make it official.
<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" />De-Dollarization in Action
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Central banks have been rewriting the playbook for global reserves. Over the past three years, they have purchased gold at near-record levels. 
In 2022 alone, net purchases reached 1,136 tonnes &mdash; the highest on record since 1950. (For context, between 2010 and 2021, average annual purchases were only 473 tonnes.) Last year ranked as the third-largest expansion ever, just 6.2 tonnes shy of 2023.
At the same time, the dollar&rsquo;s grip on world finance is loosening. Dollars accounted for just 57.8% of global reserves at the end of last year &mdash; the lowest share since 1994 and down sharply from 72% in 2002.
That decline is more than a currency story. It shows up most clearly in sagging foreign demand for U.S. Treasuries&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1hVbsAol5lNDbEBBeKHy7J/761fb597d73b684f4a82df4eaaecf58f/Otavio.png" alt="otavio tweet" width="540px" />
For decades, Treasuries have been the anchor of central bank reserves, absorbing America&rsquo;s borrowing needs. But as central banks diversify into gold and other assets, fewer dollars are recycled into U.S. debt.
JPMorgan notes that central banks&rsquo; preference for gold is helping fuel the current bull market, with prices forecast to approach $4,000 an ounce by mid-2026.
Meanwhile, with the national debt now surpassing $37 trillion, investors are questioning whether Washington has stretched its &ldquo;reserve currency privilege&rdquo; too far.
To be clear, the dollar isn&rsquo;t on the verge of collapse. But even modest de-dollarization could strain America&rsquo;s ability to borrow, spend and manage deficits. For now, gold is quietly rewriting the rules of global finance.
<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" />NVDA = &ldquo;Backbone&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;Everything is sold out,&rdquo; says Paradigm editor Davis Wilson at our sister e-letter The Million Mission. &ldquo;That&rsquo;s the reality of Nvidia&rsquo;s business right now.&rdquo;
To wit, Nvidia&rsquo;s H100 and H200 chips are backordered. Its latest Blackwell processors can&rsquo;t be manufactured fast enough. Demand is so overwhelming that cloud giants are renting server capacity to one another to fill gaps.
Despite this, skeptics &mdash; including Paradigm&rsquo;s trading pro Enrique Abeyta &mdash; see Nvidia as a <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/caveat-emptor1">bubble.</a> (Enrique makes a compelling argument; we don&rsquo;t hold to party lines around here.)
&ldquo;They&rsquo;ve been saying it for quarter after quarter,&rdquo; Davis observes. &ldquo;And they&rsquo;ve been wrong every time.&rdquo; Nvidia&rsquo;s story isn&rsquo;t about chasing one earnings beat. It&rsquo;s about positioning for the largest technology buildout of the century.
At first glance, he notes, Nvidia&rsquo;s $180 stock price looks lofty. Shares are up 12-fold since ChatGPT launched in late 2022. But earnings have grown even faster &mdash; up 17x in the same period.
&ldquo;Over the last 90 days,&rdquo; says Davis, &ldquo;expectations for this year&rsquo;s EPS jumped from $4.27 to $4.45. Next year&rsquo;s numbers rose even more &mdash; from $5.73 to $6.18.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 NVDA fundamentals are rising this fast, the stock is actually getting cheaper,&rdquo; Davis adds.
Not only that, Nvidia&rsquo;s CEO Jensen Huang more than tripled his recent forecast for AI infrastructure spending &mdash; from $1 trillion to as much as $3&ndash;4 trillion by 2030.
Today&rsquo;s focus on training AI models is only the first wave, Huang claims. Next comes inference, where those models are deployed at scale.
Beyond that? Robotics and autonomous systems &mdash; what Huang calls &ldquo;physical AI&rdquo; &mdash; which require exponentially more compute. With that, Wedbush analysts estimate demand for Nvidia&rsquo;s newest chips could exceed supply by 10-to-1.
And if U.S. restrictions ease, the Chinese market could represent $50 billion in annual sales, with the potential to grow 50% annually thereafter. &ldquo;That would be rocket fuel on top of an already unstoppable story,&rdquo; says Davis.
<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-ultimate-white-house-insider#2">&ldquo;Nvidia&rsquo;s earnings</a> once again proved the skeptics wrong,&rdquo; he concludes. &ldquo;Yes, the stock traded flat after the announcement. But underneath the surface, the setup keeps getting better.
&ldquo;Earnings estimates are rising. Growth prospects are accelerating. And a potential China reentry looms as a massive bonus.
&ldquo;This is not a bubble stock waiting to crash. It&rsquo;s the backbone of a once-in-a-generation technology shift,&rdquo; Davis emphasizes. &ldquo;Own it&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" /> NVDA shares have pulled back slightly today, but one of its Mag 7 companions is catching a bid&hellip; 
Namely, Alphabet (Google) dodged the harshest outcome in its antitrust case after a federal judge refused to force the sale of Chrome. Instead, Judge Amit Mehta banned the company from signing exclusive distribution deals for Search, Chrome, Gemini and Assistant.
Google can continue paying partners like Apple to set its products as defaults &mdash; a deal that nets Apple about $20 billion a year &mdash; but contracts must be nonexclusive and short-term. Mehta also ordered Google to share its search results with qualified competitors. The ruling preserves Apple&rsquo;s cash flow while boosting its leverage in future talks. At the time of writing, GOOG shares are up 8.5%.
Taking a look at the rest of the market today, the tech-heavy Nasdaq is up almost 1% to 21,465 while the S&amp;P 500 is up 0.30% to 5,435. At the same time, the Dow&rsquo;s down 0.35% to 45,140.
Surveying commodities, oil is down 2.50% to $63.90 for a barrel of WTI. Precious metals? Gold and silver are both up about 1% to $3,627.20 per ounce and $41.50 respectively.
Finally, the crypto market is in the green. Bitcoin&rsquo;s up 1.40% to $112,200 while Ethereum&rsquo;s up over 4.70% to $4,475.
<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" />Emergency in Name Only?
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />Though details are murky, the Trump administration is floating the idea of declaring a &ldquo;housing emergency&rdquo; this fall. 
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells the Washington Examiner: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re trying to figure out what we can do,&rdquo; he says, &ldquo;and we don&rsquo;t want to step into the business of states, counties and municipal governments.&rdquo;
Emergency status, however, typically demands swift action to protect 1) life and 2) property. What&rsquo;s being discussed here looks more like a possible policy shortcut &mdash; an attempt to bypass the normal legislative process by invoking emergency powers.
Still, the housing market does face real pressures. Excessive zoning rules and overregulation have driven up prices and limited supply. Yet Bessent&rsquo;s comments suggest the administration isn&rsquo;t prepared to tie federal dollars to zoning reforms.
In fact, according to an article at Reason, the White House proposes eliminating the Pathways to Removing Obstacles (PRO) to Housing program, a small federal grant designed to nudge cities and states toward easing restrictive zoning and permitting rules. (The administration argues the initiative has been &ldquo;hijacked for woke purposes.&rdquo;)
Meanwhile, one realistic option could be freeing up federal lands for housing &mdash; though that would likely face lawsuits from environmental groups. Also meanwhile? Trump-backed tariffs, including hikes on Canadian lumber and imported steel, only raise construction costs.
At best, a declared &ldquo;housing emergency&rdquo; could spark debate and push state and local governments to act. But unless paired with concrete reforms, it risks being little more than political theater.
<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" />Caribbean AI and Arm Wrestling
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" />When the Caribbean island of Anguilla was handed the two-letter internet domain .ai back in the 1980s, nobody thought much of it. 
After all, the island had more pressing concerns: sun-seeking tourists, looming hurricanes and making sure coconuts outnumbered people (they still do). Fast-forward to 2025 and those two letters have turned into a gold mine.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/60vFyTkpoWyyBgJ6Kz3lZI/d87aa3912aa8822ac147dabffe9114ca/Anguilla.png" alt="Anguilla" width="540px" />
With artificial intelligence now the hottest acronym on the planet, tech firms and entrepreneurs are clamoring for .ai website addresses.
Over 850,000 such domains now exist &mdash; up from fewer than 50,000 in 2020. Some sell for eye-watering sums: U.S. tech executive Dharmesh Shah, for instance, reportedly dropped $700,000 on you.ai earlier this year, betting that his idea for digital &ldquo;clones&rdquo; of people needed the perfect web home.
This isn&rsquo;t the first time a small island struck digital gold. Tuvalu famously cashed in on its .tv domain about 20 years ago, licensing it to streaming services and broadcasters worldwide.
In Anguilla, the AI boom has transformed the island&rsquo;s budget. In 2024, the government earned $39 million from .ai sales, nearly a quarter of its total revenue &mdash; second only to tourism. Officials project those revenues will keep climbing, with $49 million expected this year.
That&rsquo;s a big deal for an island of just 16,000 residents, where tourism accounts for 37% of income but remains at the mercy of hurricane season.
To safeguard the digital windfall, Anguilla has struck a five-year deal with U.S. firm Identity Digital to host domains on global servers, ensuring that a storm knocking out power lines won&rsquo;t also knock out profits.
Turns out the speck of an island&rsquo;s most lucrative resource isn&rsquo;t its crop of coconuts or its beautiful beaches. It&rsquo;s two tiny letters.
And Anguilla didn&rsquo;t even have to arm wrestle for them&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;Subaru missed a golden opportunity with <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/tariffs-on-trial#4">Starlink,&rdquo;</a> writes a longtime reader &mdash; with a callback to &ldquo;Malice in Dallas&rdquo; circa 1992.
&ldquo;I recall Southwest Airlines CEO Herb Kelleher arm wrestling a CEO for the use of the phrase &lsquo;Just Plane Smart.&rsquo; Another airline had used the slogan first, and their CEO was an arm wrestling enthusiast. Herb turned the whole thing into a fun PR moment for both companies.

<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/52CxgooID472SRFyRULpbm/102134bc87bf00ef94f475bc0c06d5ac/SouthwestCeo.png" alt="Southwest CEO" width="450px" />

Courtesy: Southwest50.com Colorful Southwest CEO Herb Kelleher was indeed&hellip; &ldquo;Over the Top.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Subaru could have generated massive publicity,&rdquo; he adds, &ldquo;with a challenge that Musk would not have turned down.&rdquo;
Thanks, reader, for the entertaining detour&hellip; We&rsquo;ll be back tomorrow with a fresh round of 5 Bullets. 
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

critical-mineral

For the first time in history, the U.S. Department of the Interior has proposed adding silver to its Critical Minerals List draft for 2025. 

You Should Own More Silver

<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" />Tariffs to the Supreme Court
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Who says nothing happens over a long holiday weekend?
Much to catch up on this morning. Let&rsquo;s go&hellip;
Not long after we hit &ldquo;send&rdquo; on Friday afternoon, a federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump&rsquo;s tariff regime &mdash; a decision that came as no surprise if you saw <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/unconstitutional">our May 9 edition</a>.
The panel by and large accepted the arguments brought by a group of small businesses and several state attorneys general &mdash; that Trump stretched the meaning of &ldquo;economic emergency&rdquo; beyond the breaking point, far beyond the language of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
However&hellip; the judges left the tariffs in place so that the Trump administration can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Handicapping a Supreme Court ruling is always a dicey affair &mdash; but given the high stakes, it&rsquo;s worth a couple of paragraphs this morning.
&ldquo;Across three different courts, 15 judges have weighed Trump&rsquo;s tariff maneuvers,&rdquo; writes The Wall Street Journal&rsquo;s Supreme Court reporter Jess Bravin &mdash; &ldquo;and 11 of them, appointed by presidents of both parties, have found he acted without legal support.&rdquo;
It&rsquo;s conceivable the Supreme Court&rsquo;s conservative majority will rule likewise.
&ldquo;Central to the case could be the &lsquo;major questions doctrine,&rsquo; a term the Supreme Court coined for expansive presidential policies the justices feel go beyond what lawmakers had in mind when adopting broadly written statutes,&rdquo; Bravin writes.
In recent years, the court has cited the major questions doctrine in striking down an Obama-era plan to curb carbon emissions as well as the Biden administration&rsquo;s student-loan forgiveness scheme.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 Paradigm&rsquo;s macro maven Jim Rickards &mdash; drawing on his experience as a Wall Street lawyer &mdash; will take the other side of that trade.
As he sees it, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act &ldquo;gives the president near-dictatorial powers in economic affairs&rdquo; &mdash; with two provisos.
&ldquo;The issue at hand must involve a national security emergency and there must be an international aspect to the emergency.
&ldquo;In a globally connected world with market crises always a possibility, these predicates are easy to meet. Obama and Biden used IEEPA hundreds of times without objection.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s true the statute does not use the word &lsquo;tariffs&rsquo; but so what? It doesn&rsquo;t use the word &lsquo;oil&rsquo; either and the U.S. has applied hundreds of sanctions aimed at Russian oil using IEEPA.&rdquo;
The timetable, you wonder? Washington insiders figure the Supreme Court won&rsquo;t decide whether to take up the case until December or January &mdash; which would push oral arguments to March or April.
Once more we&rsquo;ll pose a question we posed earlier this summer: If the court strikes down the tariffs as unconstitutional, will the U.S. Treasury have to issue refunds?
On to the next big thing from the holiday weekend &mdash; and we&rsquo;ll preface it by saying while Jim likes tariffs as a means to smooth over trade imbalances, he does not like them as an instrument of economic warfare&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />The Dragon, the Elephant and the Bear
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> Jim Rickards went semi-viral on X over the weekend with this post&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5ndeItOe3fnMesqFJpu8Gq/c365848e139d5e1f556f2f1bd29ddd61/JamesR.png" alt="james tweet" width="540px" />
That&rsquo;s Russian President Vladimir Putin, meeting in China this weekend with India&rsquo;s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
First, a reminder of the background: As we&rsquo;ve related through much of the summer, the Trump administration has slapped a 25% tariff on India &mdash; punishment for India&rsquo;s purchases of oil from Russia.
This is on top of an existing 25% &ldquo;reciprocal&rdquo; tariff. So India is now subject to one of the highest U.S. tariff rates in the world.
The idea was to make India cry Uncle and stop buying Russian oil and &ldquo;funding Putin&rsquo;s war machine,&rdquo; as Trump adviser Peter Navarro put it in the Financial Times.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://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 said all summer it wouldn&rsquo;t work &mdash; which brings us to this weekend&rsquo;s gathering of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tianjin, China.
Russia and China formed the SCO in 2001 as something of a &ldquo;counterweight&rdquo; to the Western NATO alliance; your editor has been writing about it periodically since 2006. Today its members number 10; India attained full membership in 2017.
Skeptics have argued for years that the SCO is marked more by its differences than its commonalities. In particular, India and China have an unresolved border dispute that erupted into a full-on war in 1962 &mdash; nearly rekindling in 2020.
But as Jim Rickards wrote to a select group of readers on the eve of the summit Friday, &ldquo;Trump&rsquo;s weaponization of trade has created a new dynamic within the SCO. The imposition of punitive tariffs might see the organization&rsquo;s most powerful countries &mdash; China, Russia and India &mdash; align more closely against the U.S.&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 as you see from the photo above, that&rsquo;s exactly how events played out. 
Modi and Putin met one-on-one &mdash; after which Modi said the two discussed &ldquo;ways to deepen bilateral cooperation in all spheres, including trade, fertilizers, space, security and culture.&rdquo;
Meanwhile during the summit itself, China&rsquo;s Xi emphasized cooperation with India &mdash; rivalry notwithstanding.
"The world is going toward transformation,&rdquo; said Xi. &ldquo;China and India are two of the most civilized countries. We are the world's two most populous countries and part of the Global South... It is vital to be friends, a good neighbor, and the Dragon and the Elephant to come together.&rdquo;
And there&rsquo;s more: At the summit&rsquo;s conclusion, the SCO issued a statement condemning the recent U.S.-Israeli war on Iran &mdash; which is also an SCO member.
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> You&rsquo;d think American leaders would take India more seriously. Actually, American leaders once did.
Former State Department adviser James Carden says there was a time when the position of U.S. ambassador to India often went to someone of stature.
&ldquo;During the Cold War,&rdquo; Carden writes, &ldquo;it was a particularly sensitive post given India&rsquo;s role as a leader of the nonaligned bloc &mdash; in other words, those countries that refused either Washington&rsquo;s or Moscow&rsquo;s tutelage.&rdquo;
JFK gave the position to the Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith. Republican Richard Nixon gave it to Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan &mdash; who went on to a lengthy stint in the U.S. Senate, respected on both sides of the aisle. George H.W. Bush gave the post to Thomas Pickering &mdash; who&rsquo;d already been U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
Nowadays? &ldquo;For reasons that remain obscure,&rdquo; Carden writes, Joe Biden gave the post to &ldquo;the nepo-mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti,&rdquo; And Trump has nominated Sergio Gor &mdash; described by Carden as &ldquo;a 38-year-old native of Malta with zero diplomatic or foreign affairs experience (but, as it happens, ample experience as an amateur wedding DJ).&rdquo;
Presumably those sorts of disses haven&rsquo;t gone unnoticed in New Delhi. Just sayin&rsquo;...
<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" />September Sell-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" /> The mainstream has settled into a strange narrative as a new trading month begins&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/VrQdDfHGc2EM7KOyY7t2V/0dbfa3386386a4d961d9dde269b6d045/Bloomberg_FT.png" alt="bloomberg and FT" width="540px" />
The Financial Times speaks of &ldquo;pressure on U.S. Treasuries and other government debt, partly due to investors&rsquo; worries about rising debt piles in many major economies.&rdquo;
The FT also quotes the head of stock research at State Street, saying, &ldquo;The risk-off sentiment today is broader market unease stemming from the bond market.&rdquo;
Which begs the question: Why now?
For years, the United States has had a debt-to-GDP ratio that puts it in such high-debt company as Japan, Greece and Italy. The debt outlook isn&rsquo;t so hot in Europe, either &mdash; certainly not in Germany, France or the U.K.
In any event, U.S. Treasuries are indeed selling off today &mdash; pushing interest rates higher. At last check the yield on a 10-year T-note is 4.27% &mdash; up from under 4.23% on Friday. That&rsquo;s a big move in the bond world.
As for stocks, the S&amp;P 500 has shed 1.2% as we write &mdash; sitting at 6,382. The Dow is holding up a little better, but the Nasdaq is down over 1.4%.
In electronic trading yesterday, gold pushed past $3,500 and silver over $41. Both have pulled back since &mdash; but silver is still holding the line on $40, a level last seen in 2011.
<blockquote>➢ One economic number of note: The August ISM Manufacturing Index rings in at 48.7 &mdash; right in line with Wall Street&rsquo;s expectations. Any number below 50 suggests a shrinking factory sector &mdash; and except for two months last winter, the index has been mired under 50 since late 2022.</blockquote>
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> A quick postscript to the inflation number chronicled here on Friday&hellip;
We mentioned how &ldquo;core PCE&rdquo; &mdash; the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s preferred measure of inflation &mdash; is running 2.9% year-over-year.
We also mentioned how this number has been stuck in a range between 2.6&ndash;3.0% for the last 18 months &mdash; nowhere near the Fed&rsquo;s 2% inflation target.
But sometimes you need a good visual to put it all in perspective &mdash; and author Larry McDonald either found or created an outstanding one, going back to the mid-1990s.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3HgL77fyXvm6alRpFm43Ip/9d77485eeab19951bb01a2e72dab364e/Lawrence.png" alt="lawrence tweet" width="540px" />
<a id="4"></a>
Which reinforces something we&rsquo;ve been saying <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/declare-your-independence-from-inflation">for over two years now</a>: The track record in developed economies shows that whenever inflation sails past 5% &mdash; as it did in 2022 &mdash; it typically takes a decade or longer to get back to &ldquo;normal&rdquo; 2% inflation.
Plan accordingly. Precious metals and other natural resources thrived during the inflationary 1970s and they&rsquo;re thriving again&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" />Starlink: What&rsquo;s in a (Brand) 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" />It seems Elon Musk did not have dibs on the Starlink name when he began launching his mini-satellites for worldwide internet access a few years ago.
Your editor is taking delivery today on a new Subaru Outback &mdash; reliable wintertime transport to replace a 2004 Chevy TrailBlazer that croaked without warning last year.
Among the blizzard of welcome emails I got was one with &ldquo;Starlink_Subscriptions&rdquo; in the from line.
Ugh, I thought &mdash; probably some trial subscription that I&rsquo;m going to have to jump through a bunch of hoops to cancel.
But no: The Perplexity AI engine tells me Subaru adopted the name Starlink no later than 2013 for its &ldquo;vehicle connectivity and infotainment technology.&rdquo; The name emerged from the stars in Subaru&rsquo;s logo. (&ldquo;Subaru&rdquo; is Japanese for &ldquo;Pleiades,&rdquo; as it turns out. Now you know.)
Musk&rsquo;s SpaceX didn&rsquo;t adopt the Starlink name until sometime around 2019.
Yet Subaru never took Musk to court. Why is an object of much internet speculation. Too costly for Subaru? Not a viable case given that the companies operate in different industries? A quiet settlement before it ever got to court?
In any event, Musk&rsquo;s perceived dominance of the name is such that this year, Subaru ditched it in favor of a mouthful called &ldquo;MySubaru Connected Services.&rdquo; Here&rsquo;s a screengrab from Reddit&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7vYA6q7yHKXBEXSWp5TFBs/aa1e70919f6c924988da4dac3269bb91/MySubaru.png" alt="my subaru" width="540px" />
Clearly the transition isn&rsquo;t complete, given my momentary confusion when something from &ldquo;Starlink&rdquo; landed in my inbox.
Anyway, score one for Musk&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" />Perceptions, Reality and Lisa Cook
<img class="infinity-bullet" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left_2x.png 2x" align="left" /> On the subject of Donald Trump <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-lisa-cook-gold-trade">attempting to oust Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve</a>, a reader writes&hellip;
&ldquo;Gonigam&rsquo;s comment that &lsquo;perceptions matter more than reality&rsquo; is a crock. Probably a good lead magnet in his article for the braindead, but still a crock.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Huh?!
In the first place, perception frequently matters more than reality in markets.
For much of the last three years you could make the case that Nvidia shares were overvalued. And by any objective measure, that was the reality. But it didn&rsquo;t matter; perceptions were such that people were willing to pay an ever-richer price for those shares regardless.
&ldquo;Price is truth,&rdquo; as our trading pro Enrique Abeyta regularly reminds his readers. The price might be grounded in a BS narrative, but the price is the price. You can&rsquo;t argue with the price; you might as well bark at the moon.
Of course, perceptions can change &mdash; and then the price will likely change, too.
Anyway, I&rsquo;m not sure why you&rsquo;re taking so much exception to this truism in the context of the Lisa Cook story.
By any objective measure, the dollar is trash and U.S. Treasuries are toast &mdash; and have been for a long time. But that&rsquo;s not been the perception; indeed until maybe three years ago the perception was that U.S. Treasuries are the safest investment on the planet.
Conceivably that perception will change if Trump succeeds in pushing out Cook, undermining the current perception that the Fed operates independently of whoever is president at the time.
Didn&rsquo;t strike me as an especially edgy thing to say. But you never know what&rsquo;s gonna trigger someone nowadays&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

Trump-Emergency

Not long after we hit “send” on Friday afternoon, a federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s tariff regime. 