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Maximizing Wealth Through an Integrated Approach with Andrew Winnett

from Kerry Lutz's Financial Survival Network

Andrew Winnett, a financial expert, provides insights into inflation, the stock market, retirement planning, and Social Security. Andrew highlighted the role of excessive money printing and the staggering national debt in causing inflation, and expressed concerns about the accuracy of inflation data and the potential challenges of maintaining stable inflation rates in the future. He also discussed the impact of demographic shifts on social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and the need for a conservative approach to retirement planning.

Click Here to Listen to the Audio

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Almost 10,000 U.S. Banks Have Disappeared Since 1985, Leaving 4 Mega Banks Controlling 39 Percent of Bank Assets

by Pam Martens and Russ Martens
Wall Street on Parade

According to Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) data, there were 14,417 federally-insured banking institutions in the U.S. in 1985. As of December 31, 2023, the FDIC reports there are only 4,587 remaining. The vast majority of the 9,830 banks that have disappeared since 1985 did not fail – they were merged with other banks.

Today, just four banks control $9.3 trillion in consolidated bank assets or 39 percent of all bank assets. Those four banks are JPMorgan Chase with $3.395 trillion in consolidated assets; Bank of America with $2.540 trillion; Wells Fargo with $1.7 trillion; and Citigroup’s Citibank with $1.685 trillion. (All asset figures are as of December 31, 2023 and come from the Federal Reserve’s statistical release of the largest banks.)

Continue Reading at WallStreetOnParade.com…

“It Looks Like Fly Sh*t to Me. . .”

by James Hickman
Schiff Sovereign

I’m on my way back home from Mexico City after an incredible weekend event here with more than 100 of our Total Access members.

First things first, if you’ve never been to Mexico City, I highly recommend it. A lot of people have a misconception that the city is some kind third world dump. It’s not. And most first-time visitors are stunned by the vast green areas, expansive parks, tree-lined streets, museums, architecture, and modern lifestyle.

In my opinion it also has some of the best restaurants in the western hemisphere. You can eat extremely well in Mexico City, but you don’t pay very much for it.

The event we held for our Schiff Sovereign Total Access members was also pretty great.

Continue Reading at SchiffSovereign.com…

Our Economy and Politics Are Broken

by Charles Hugh Smith
Of Two Minds

Awakening from the dream of painless financial / political solutions, we find the status quo is not the solution, it is the source of our decay.

Our situation as a society is akin to awakening from a dream of loved ones to the realization that they passed away long ago. Our economy and politics are broken, yet we continue dreaming that they are functional.

Let’s start with politics. American politics now bears an eerie resemblance to pre-collapse Soviet politics: a geriatric, sclerotic, stuck-in-the-past leadership, five-year plans (four year plans in the U.S. with one goal–get re-elected) that do nothing to change the trajectory of social decay, and a populace increasingly opting out of political engagement as people realize the pointlessness of the entire charade: the commoners are powerless and the elites are incompetent and disconnected from reality.

Continue Reading at OfTwoMinds.com…

Gold $2,600

by Greg Guenthner
Daily Reckoning

The Senate quietly passed a $1.2 trillion funding package on Saturday morning to avert a partial government shutdown.

Just days earlier, Jerome Powell and the Fed soothed jittery investors, declaring that the Fed still intends to cut rates before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, you might have noticed gold and Bitcoin consolidating near their respective all-time highs.

Coincidence?

Probably not.

While you might consider the sharp moves higher in both assets to be no-brainers considering recent events, gold’s resilience in the face of numerous rally-busting pressures is where I want to focus our attention.

Continue Reading at DailyReckoning.com…

Prices of New Houses -19% From Peak, Lowest Since June 2021. Why Sales of New Houses Held Up, While Sales of Existing Houses Plunged

by Wolf Richter
Wolf Street

Prices of New Houses v. Existing Houses: Price cuts and mortgage-rate buydowns make new houses more attractive.

The median price of new single-family houses that were sold in February fell to $400,500, the lowest since June 2021, down by 7.6% from February 2023 and down by 6.3% from February 2022, according to data from the Census Bureau today (blue in the chart). Compared to the peak in October 2022, the median price has dropped by 19.4%.

The three-month moving average, which irons out some of the monthly ups and downs, fell to $411,700, the lowest since September 2021 (red).

Continue Reading at WolfStreet.com…

Russia Responds and Gold Stampedes East

Russia respond, gold floods from West to East, and the US Treasury Department’s gross issuance of government debt is back at the emergency levels briefly hit during Covid. What’s the emergency now, we wonder?

by Dr. Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity

Welcome to today’s scouting report. A lot happened over this weekend, so let’s dive in.

Following the terrorist massacre at the Russian music venue Russia has upped the intensity and targeting of attacks against Ukraine. One of the hits was apparently against the F16 capable airstrip at Stryi but the intensity and duration of the fireballs seen over the next 24 hours suggested to me that perhaps the NatGas storage facility near Stryi might have been hit.

If so, this is big news and a game changer for Europe and not for the better. A lot of NG, as I understand it, still flows through such facilities and into the EU. If hit, not only do those flows stop, but Ukraine will suddenly need to draw from the EU system instead of transiting NG into the EU system.

Continue Reading at PeakProsperity.com…

New York, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Baltimore Were Once Such Beautiful Cities…

by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse Blog

If America is heading in the right direction, why have so many of our major cities become cesspools of violence, drugs, theft, trash and homelessness? Once upon a time, millions of young people from all over America flocked to our rapidly growing metropolitan areas. Today, there is a mass exodus out of our largest metropolitan areas due to the absolutely deplorable conditions. If you are not yet convinced that we are a nation in decline, spend some time wandering around our core urban areas. The shiny new cities that previous generations of Americans built for us are degenerating at a pace that is absolutely stunning.

Just look at what is happening to New York. A couple of decades ago, it was still in relatively good shape.

But now it is going down the tubes really fast.

Continue Reading at TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com…

RFK to Jay Powell On Day #1: You’re Fired!

by David Stockman
LewRockwell.com

RFK has pointedly announced that he will pardon Deep State prisoner Julian Assange on day #1. That sent a powerful message that the destructive rule of Washington’s bipartisan War Party will be brought to an abrupt end if he is elected President.

Likewise, RFK should announce an intent to stop dead in its tracks the Fed’s egregious servitude to Wall Street and the one percenters who luxuriate in the massive inflation of financial assets it enables. Pledging to hand ex-private equity impresario, Jay Powell, his walking papers on January 20, 2025, would give forceful expression to that intent.

At the substantive level, three policy markers could further convey that a sweeping regime change at the nation’s central bank is coming down the pike—changes that would liberate the Fed from the grip of Wall Street speculators and Washington spenders alike:

Continue Reading at LewRockwell.com…

Resurgent Inflation

by David Haggith
GoldSeek

In this weekend’s Deeper Dive, I dug into the many ways in which Powell’s words show a strong bias toward rate cuts that is likely to cause him to treat rising inflation like it is only transitory. That means the Fed may be as likely to let the growth in inflation go until it, again, becomes so hot it is hard to take back down. Because we never learn!

One example I gave was how Powell acknowledged January’s inflation was a lot hotter than the Fed would like to see and that February’s was climbing, though not as intensely, yet said both were likely to be “seasonal problems.” I gave a number of other examples where he was leaning too hard toward the returning rise of inflation being something that will, in his view, likely take care of itself. He admitted the Fed needs to be vigilant for the opposite prospect, as it waits to see if inflation takes care of itself … just in case the Fed is wrong.

Continue Reading at GoldSeek.com…

One Million Migrants Apprehended at Southwest Border in First Six Months of Year

by Bob Price and Randy Clark
Breitbart.com

According to unofficial Border Patrol reports reviewed by Breitbart Texas, the number of migrants illegally crossing the southwest border between ports of entry surpassed the one million mark in less than the first six months of Fiscal Year 24. The milestone puts the Biden administration on pace for more than two million migrant apprehensions for the third consecutive year.

Breitbart Texas reviewed an unofficial Border Patrol report which revealed that the number of migrants apprehended after illegally crossing the U.S. border with Mexico exceeded the one-million mark by March 25th. The apprehension of just over one million migrants during the first six months of Fiscal Year 24, which began on October 1, 2023, falls just shy of the same period last year when agents apprehended nearly 1,057,000 migrants. The pace is also just slightly behind the pace of the record-setting FY22 report — a year that saw the apprehension of more than 2.2 million migrants.

Continue Reading at Breitbart.com…

Biden’s Antitrust Case Against Apple is Truly Stupid

Plus: A listener asks about the absurdity of Social Security entitlements.

by Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman
Reason.com

In this week’s The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman assess the Justice Department’s nonsensical antitrust case against Apple before turning their attention to Donald Trump’s $464 million bond payment deadline in his New York civil fraud case.

00:41—Bonkers antitrust suit against Apple

20:27—Congress passes $1.2 trillion spending package

29:54—Weekly Listener Question

Click Here to Listen to the Audio

Continue Reading at Reason.com…

The Democrats Have Crossed the Bridge into Unabashed Nazism

by Steve McCann
American Thinker

Following the lead of the Communists in the Soviet Union, the American Left for three-quarters of a century has been incessantly and mindlessly accusing Conservatives, and anyone opposed to their statist agenda, of being Nazis. Which, together with the accusation of racism, has become the ultimate invective.

As history is always written by the victors, the Soviet Union, an ally of the Nazi Germany from 1939-41, sought to obfuscate its role in initiating the Second World War. They, with the cooperation of United States and Great Britain, succeeded in recasting National Socialism, or Nazism, as being on the right-wing of the political spectrum. A recasting American and European academics eagerly adopted and embedded into the post-war political psyche.

Continue Reading at AmericanThinker.com…

COMEX Silver Rally Context

by Craig Hemke
Sprott Money

Since late February, the prices of both COMEX gold and COMEX silver have seen a nice rally. With each move up, we always see changes in the positioning of market participants, and this latest move is no different.

This week we’ll again discuss the most recent Commitment of Traders reports from the U.S. CFTC. These reports are surveyed at the COMEX close every Tuesday and then released three days later—sometimes longer if there’s a U.S. government holiday in between. Because of the delay in reporting, Commitment of Traders (CoT) data cannot generally be used for trading purposes. Instead, if you know historical CoT trends you can use the data to help you find price trends, and that’s what we’ll try to do today.

Continue Reading at SprottMoney.com…