Coffee hits new all time high in September 2025 of $9.14 per pound, 111% higher than it used to be.
Coffee averaged $4.33 per pound under Trump I.
Friday, October 24, 2025
Thursday, October 23, 2025
National Debt hits $38 trillion
Nov 21, 2024: $36.034T
July 4, 2025 ONE BIG UGLY BILL
Aug 11, 2025: $37.004 T
Oct 21, 2025: $38.019 T
Obamacare's chickens have come home to roost!
David Dayen should have entitled this The Planned Failure of Obamacare Is Now Upon Us.
The Health Insurance Cost Crisis Is Now Upon Us
... We should be clear that this premium apocalypse is a function of returning Obamacare subsidies to where they were in the original version of the law. That was poorly designed to target the middle class with bearing the bloat in the health care system, and no work was done on basic health plans or other public options at the state level. (A federal public option was stripped from the legislation by the threat of that exemplary moderate, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, to withhold his support unless it was dropped.) Now, Democrats are effectively warning that a return to their original vision of Obamacare spells doom. (And what we’re really talking about is how much the government should send to private insurance companies, a horribly inefficient way of ensuring health for American citizens.) ... The ACA was seen as a “starter home” that could be built on, and Democrats built on it. It’s Republican neglect that is taking the wrecking ball to it, with all the political fallout on their backs. ...
Yes, Obamacare was the enemy of the middle class, making it "bear the bloat". Communists have always hated the middle class because the middle class stands in the way of the revolution. Obamacare was designed this way on purpose, by Democrats and Obama who were the communists we always said they were. Senator Max Baucus rightly called it what it was, income redistribution.
Premiums have steadily risen along with deductibles, to the point that everyone pays their premium, then pays out of pocket, no one ever reaches their deductible, and the plan never pays anything. Most people never reap any benefit under Obamacare. Now premiums will explode without the subsidies, making dropping it more attractive than ever.
And No, Republicans had no duty to "build" on Obamacare. It was rammed down their throats in the first place. No Republicans ever voted for this goddamn commie boondoggle.
The best thing which could happen right now is for the millions imprisoned in this system to opt out of it and let Obamacare implode. That would force the Congress back into the corner it was in in 2009.
Not one more penny should be spent to prop up this system which benefits only the insurance companies. Can you say Luigi Mangione?
Obamacare should be repealed, and nothing done to replace it. It would be painful, but it is the only way.
In the aftermath, someone will start to sell real insurance again out of the ashes, and the current greedy bastards of the insurance industry will scramble to follow them as they lose business and market share. That, the capitalist option, is the only public option which makes any sense, but currently that is against the law.
Just repeal it.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
The presidency is reduced to a mere product under Trump
GOP senators have lunch with the president at The White House and leave with swag.
One nutball era takes over where one left off: Trump's big ugly bill had no money in it to replenish the Strategic Oil Reserve gutted by Joe Biden, at a time when WTI is half the price it was in 2022
US seeks 1 million barrels of oil for Strategic Petroleum Reserve
... The
previous administration of former President Joe Biden sold record
amounts of oil from the SPR, including a 180-million-barrel sale after
Russia, one of the world's top oil producers, invaded Ukraine in 2022.
The reserve, which has about a 700-million-barrel capacity, is now
holding nearly 409 million barrels. ...
Trump's tax and spending bill included about $171 million for the SPR oil purchases and maintenance, much less
than the $1.3 billion that had originally been in the legislation.
Buying more oil for the SPR will likely require the passage of new
legislation. ...
Buying a million barrels is a drop in the bucket. Maintenance costs are eating up most of the $171 million. Joe Biden reduced the reserve by 244 million barrels during his tenure.
A reserve of 600 million barrels would run the country for only 30 days in a real emergency, max.
We are governed by imbeciles, who think we currently have about 50 national emergencies.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Gold and silver sell off after gold scaled an all-time peak of $4,381.21 on Monday
... Spot gold was down 5.5% to a one-week low of $4,115.26 per ounce as of 01:45 a.m. EDT (1745 GMT), its steepest fall since August 2020. ... Spot silver dropped 7.6% to $48.49 per ounce. ...
Story here.
These two pixies John J. Waters and Adam Ellwanger can't point to one thing which Democrats have achieved which Donald Trump has permanently reversed or topped
... By the time Obama secured his second term as president, the Democratic party (and the shadow groups that swim in its wake) had won the day on virtually every issue that mattered. This victory was largely due to their focus on doing and creating things rather than thinking about them. ...
Democrats owned the world of things and the real-world effects of their policies – however incoherent – were evident to all. An underlying premise of the Trump campaign was a return to things. To infrastructure. To clean streets and safe cities. To American-made products. And to historic landmarks and monuments that memorialize America’s greatness for future generations. Trump recognized that conservative ideas are meaningless until we rebuild the material conditions where they can be achieved. ...
More.
There isn't one thing in the room with us right now, and there won't be.
We are three weeks into a government shutdown and Congressional Republicans are completely OK with these precious legislative days just thrown into the dumpster of history without accomplishing anything.
The US House isn't even in session, and hasn't been in session now but for 3 of the last 16 weeks, and this will likely extend to 17, 18, who knows how many weeks. Some people are predicting to Thanksgiving.
The GOP won't swear in Democrat Adelita Grijalva, elected on September 23rd, because they fear Republican Thomas Massie's Epstein gambit.
Donald Trump's GOP is a farce.
Monday, October 20, 2025
Health experts and recent research agree that standard time with its earlier sunrises and sunsets is better for numerous aspects of health
Story here.
Daylight saving time ends Nov 2 and begins again on Mar 8, 2026.
In your guts you know he's nuts
Here.
And no, we're not afraid of him. We just loathe him, that's all. He's not one of us.
If we have to vote Democrat for the first time in our lives to stop him, we will. If Russell Kirk could do it in 1976, so can we. William F. Buckley Jr championed Democrat Joe Lieberman in 1988. If Gavin Newsom can support Thomas Massie in 2025, we can also be tactical in 2026. It doesn't mean we're getting married. Dividing political power intentionally is the genius of America. It's only ideologues who think you are who you vote for.
That others saw through this fraud long before us is to their credit. We should learn from them. It is no shame to be mistaken, only not to learn from one's mistakes.
The country is only marginally in Trump's hands. He can be defeated easily a year from now, and he must be.
Conservatism has always been counter-revolutionary.
After a phone call with Putin, Mad King Ludwig is back to his crazy self and again wants Ukraine to surrender to the Russian invader
Trump is a disgrace.
His administration can't end soon enough.
Sunday, October 19, 2025
Since the ceasefire, Hamas has killed at least 32 fellow Gazans who do not support them
. . . Since the ceasefire took hold, Hamas has killed at least 32 people in a wave of killings meant to target anti-Hamas clans that had surged in the Strip.
More.
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Right, right, there's absolutely no reason to think of Trump as king, none whatsoever
Even when his A.I. & Crypto Czar trolls you today, or Trump does in September, or The White House does in February.
This is all nothing more than a joke they keep on telling.
People are right to doubt government data when Trump's Treasury Department under Scott Bessent leads off with this chart crime of September 2025 federal outlays
You can access the Treasury's Monthly Treasury Statement here to see for yourself.
The OUTLAYS BY FUNCTION for September 2025 in the Figure 1 graphic DO NOT ADD UP TO $346 BILLION, as stated.
They add up to $560 billion.
The receipts DO ADD UP, almost, to $543 billion.
That the graphic indicates $544 billion, not $543 billion, is another clue that the entire thing is a tendentiously fabricated interpretation of the data from within the report, obviously.
Well duh.
Meanwhile that "Other" category isn't a Red Flag for nothing!
"Hello! Hey! Yes, you! We're about to pull a fast one! Pay Attention!"
In the end outlays of $560 billion minus receipts of $543 billion = a September DEFICIT of $17 billion, NOT A F^@KING SURPLUS OF $198 BILLION.
They are asking you to deny the evidence of your own eyes, and they know it.
It's a total lie, as in Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics.
When you can't trust the U.S. Treasury Department, who can you trust?
The upshot is that Fiscal Year 2025 ends with a deficit of $1.973 trillion, far worse than FY 2024's $1.816 trillion . . . by 8.6%.
But the Trump Regime wants you to think the deficit is smaller than in 2024, at $1.775 trillion, that they're cutting spending by closing agencies and departments and firing federal employees, and increasing revenues through tariffs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and that the Big Ugly Bill is working.
LIES, DAMN LIES, I tell you.
Friday, October 17, 2025
New record highs for gold and silver: $4,378.69 and $54.47
... Spot gold was down 2.2% to $4,228.89 per ounce, after scaling an all-time high of $4,378.69 earlier in the session. ... Spot silver fell 4.1% to $51.99 per ounce, after hitting a record high of $54.47 ...
-- CNBC
Thursday, October 16, 2025
Not sure exactly how high, but gold was higher lol, so was silver
. . . Spot gold was gained [sic] 0.4% per ounce to $4,343.63 per ounce Thursday evening, after bullion touched a record high of $4,330.42 [what?!]. ... Spot silver rose 1.8% to $54.04 per ounce, after hitting a record high of $54.15 earlier in the session. ...
Updated:
Updated lol:
Treasury Secretary Bessent says we have to stop the rigged Chicom economy by abandoning free market principles just like them
Trump administration will set price floors across range of industries to combat China, Bessent says
... “When you are facing a nonmarket economy like China, then you have to exercise industrial policy,” Bessent told Sara Eisen at CNBC’s Invest in America Forum in Washington, D.C.
“So we’re going to set price floors and the forward buying to make sure that this doesn’t happen again and we’re going to do it across a range of industries,” the Treasury secretary said, without naming specific industries the administration was looking at beyond rare earths. ...
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” the Treasury secretary said when asked about additional equity stakes. “When we get an announcement like this week with China on the rare earths, you realize we have to be self-sufficient, or we have to be sufficient with our allies.”
The Trump administration will not take stakes in nonstrategic industries, Bessent said. “We do have to be very careful not to overreach,” he said. ...
Equity performance relative to gold in 2025 is seventh worst of all time but notably unique
2025, 2008, 2002, 1979, 1977, 1974, 1973.
... all the other instances of gold outperformance happened in bear markets for stocks or during major economic crises. ...
Buh bye stablecoin, gold rallies to a fresh record high on Thursday lol
Gold extended its rally to a fresh record high on Thursday ... Earlier in the session, bullion touched a record high of $4,241.77, climbing for a fifth consecutive session. ...
More.
ROFLMAO: Paxos, blockchain partner of PayPal, mistakenly mints $300 TRILLION PYUSD, world's sixth largest so-called stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the U.S. Dollar with market capitalization of only $2.6 BILLION
J. P. Morgan explains gold's rise as having something to do, in part, with "waning confidence in fiat currencies." 😏
Why should anything pegged to fiat be more confidence inspiring, especially involving PayPal?
People who've been permanently banned by PayPal this morning are probably saying, "Couldn't have happened to a finer company".
This event should be good for fiat, and really good for gold, which won't suddenly be minted by anyone to the tune of $300 trillion, at least not until Elon Musk lassoes one of them thar asteroids.
PayPal’s crypto partner mints a whopping $300 trillion worth of stablecoins in ‘technical error’
Paxos, the blockchain partner of PayPal, mistakenly minted $300 trillion worth of the online payment giant’s stablecoin on Wednesday in what the company called a “technical error.” ...
Transactions on Etherscan showed that the mistake had been fixed after about 20 minutes.
PYUSD is advertised as a dollar-pegged stablecoin that is fully backed by U.S. dollar deposits, U.S. treasuries and similar cash equivalents. Therefore, PayPal says the tokens are always redeemable for U.S. dollars on a 1:1 basis.
However, the technical error highlights that the dollar peg is guaranteed by PayPal and its independent third-party attestation reports, rather than intrinsically tied to the minting of a stablecoin. ...
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
New gold high: $4,217.95
... Spot gold rose 1.3% to $4,193.39 per ounce after hitting an all-time high of $4,217.95 earlier. ... Silver climbed 1.7% to $52.31, following Tuesday’s record high of $53.6. ...
More.
Updated:
Updated lol:
Total Information Awareness is closer than ever
cnbc
Walmart deploys millions of new sensors in retail's first large-scale deployment of IoT tech
Bob Violino
Walmart is deploying millions of ambient Internet of Things battery-free sensors throughout its massive supply chain in the U.S.
The retail giant is using technology from Wiliot in what the IoT vendor is calling the first large-scale deployment of ambient IoT in the retail sector and one of the largest such implementations to date.
Ambient IoT is a class of IoT devices mainly powered by harvesting ambient energy from radio waves, light, motion, heat, or other viable ambient energy sources. It’s an evolution of legacy IoT and radio frequency identification technologies that promise lower costs and high scalability.
Walmart will be using the IoT sensors to track pallets nationwide by the end of 2026. “Expansion to other global markets is under consideration, but the immediate focus is the U.S. rollout,” Cathey said.
The company will now have real-time insights into inventory management, knowing exactly where merchandise is located and whether it’s owned by the retailer, at any moment, and covering an estimated 90 million pallets of inventory when at full scale.
The ambient IoT sensors Walmart uses capture signals about temperature, location, humidity, and dwell time. These signals are linked with the company’s advanced artificial intelligence systems, enabling the company to dramatically improve supply chain efficiency, inventory accuracy, and cold chain compliance.
“We expect to be active in about 500 Walmart locations by the end of the year, with plans for national expansion in 2026,” said Greg Cathey, senior vice president of transformation and innovation at Walmart. The rollout will cover 4,600 Walmart Supercenters, Neighborhood Markets, and more than 40 distribution centers, generating high-resolution supply chain data that feeds into Walmart’s AI systems, he said.
“This data provides proof of delivery, improves replenishment decisions, and lets us know where our items are in real time,” Cathey said. “By combining continuous sensing with AI, we’re moving from probabilistic predictions to precision decision-making.”
Greater visibility into supply chain
What makes the addition of ambient IoT sensors significant is it provides a new stream of data into AI systems, enabling them to be even more effective in giving Walmart greater visibility into supply chain operations.
The technology initiative is already making a significant impact by eliminating some manual tasks and providing automated alerts, Cathey said. “Associates no longer need to perform time-consuming checks to locate items,” he said. “Automated alerts now flag this information in real time, allowing associates to act faster and dedicate more time to serving customers.”
The enhanced visibility into the supply chain is also helping to resolve inventory discrepancies, allowing improved customer experiences.
While Cathey did not disclose specific figures such as cost savings, Walmart is anticipating gains from higher supply chain efficiency, improved inventory accuracy, reduced manual tasks for associates, and the ability to get items on shelves more quickly. “Customers [will] benefit from better product availability and consistency,” he said.
“AI system performance is predicated on its training data. The better the data, the better the AI performance,” said Julien Bellanger, president of Wiliot. “Supply chain AI has long been fueled by inherently out-of-date data — or forecasted data that represents projections rather than reality.”
Ambient IoT is changing this model, Bellanger said, by fueling AI with data that reflects what’s actually happening throughout the supply chain.
“We have been here before; Walmart was an early adopter of RFID back in 2004 when it was supposed to provide much the same functionality,” said Bill Ray, distinguished vice president, analyst and chief of research at research firm Gartner. “However, this time the cost of the tags is much lower, and that will be a tipping point.”
Ray says it’s important to note that the value of such IoT systems is already known. “The business models have been well studied and evaluated, when RFID was first touted as the solution to supply chain problems,” he said. “RFID has had an enormous impact, but the cost of the tags prevented the transformation it had promised. The industry has been able to integrate the new, lower-cost tags into the same value models, and come up with positive answers.”
Gartner has been tracking Wiliot for a long time. “The question was never if the technology could deliver on its promise. The question was if Wiliot could reliably scale production without compromising tag performance or price, and if it could integrate with existing supply chain systems. This announcement tells us that Walmart is convinced it can, now Wiliot will have to prove it,” Ray said.
“Ambient IoT just works,” Cathey said. “It doesn’t require wanding or scanning. It lets our associates do what they do, and they can focus on doing their jobs safely and efficiently while providing continuous, real-time visibility into our supply chain.”
Ambient IoT got a boost earlier this year when a new business alliance was created to develop and promote an open, multi-standard ecosystem for ambient IoT manufacturers, suppliers, integrators, operators, users, and customers, based on next-generation, battery-free ambient IoT standards.
By focusing on advanced communication technologies, the alliance is seeking to overcome the limitations of traditional battery-powered IoT devices, promoting more sustainable and efficient products.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/15/walmart-deploying-millions-of-internet-iot-sensors-across-us.html
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
It's hard to keep up with ever-record-setting gold and silver: $4,179.48 and $53.60
... Spot gold rose 0.5% to $4,128.49 per ounce, as of 0805 GMT, after hitting a record high of $4,179.48 earlier in the session. ... Spot silver fell 0.1% to $52.27, after hitting a record high of $53.60 ...
More.
Updated:
Flight to safety in September or just rebalancing?
401(k) plans saw ‘flight’ to cash, bonds in September, analysis finds
... Bond funds captured 39% of fund inflows, while 25% of net investor money flowed to stable value and 18% to money market funds, Alight found. ... The shift to bonds may indicate investors are rebalancing to keep their asset allocations from getting too stock-heavy, Austin said.
VBTLX was up 1.05% in September vs. 1.93% in the 3-months ended September 30th. The fund was up 6.10% year to date on September 30th.
Monday, October 13, 2025
Democrats are aghast at the lack of coordinated pushback from their GOP colleagues against the Trump administration's aggressive incursion into the power of the purse
The GOP wants autocracy, and boy are they ever giving it to us, in the name of cutting duly authorized spending of already appropriated funds.
It's pure madness, a complete abnegation of the constitution, brought to us by the GOP.
It would be unpatriotic to ever vote for them again.
... “I believe that we don’t have a choice about reducing spending,” said Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana), a member of the committee. “The only time I’ve seen us reduce spending from the 10 years I’ve been here is through a rescissions package.”
The administration’s “aggressive” incursion into the power of the purse follows decades of members of Congress ceding their authority to the executive on other matters like tariffs and war powers, according to Molly Reynolds, an expert at the center-left think tank the Brookings Institution. But the appropriations process — although messy and increasingly partisan in recent years — had remained generally free from the reach of the executive branch. ...
More.
Of course the deal with Hamas was too good to be true, as is the case with every deal involving Donald Trump
Hamas releases names of only four deceased hostages to be returned Monday
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum called for all aspects of the ceasefire with Hamas to be suspended until all of the slain hostages were returned to Israel
IDF Chief Spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Deffrin confirmed on Monday afternoon earlier rumors that only four deceased hostages would be returned by Hamas on Monday evening. ...
In response, the Hostage Families Forum called for an immediate suspension of Israel's agreement with Hamas until every deceased hostage was returned. ...
Deffrin initially provided no information about the other 24 deceased hostages ...
... in a briefing on Sunday night, IDF sources had not hinted that the number of returned deceased hostages would be so low on the first day.
... most observers were expecting a more significant number of hostages to be returned on the first day and the majority to be returned within a few days, with only a small number of unresolved cases. ...
Gold hits record $4,083.42, silver hits record $51.70, Bank of America forecasts $5,000 and $65
Gold, silver hit record highs as Trump threatens fresh China tariffs
... Spot gold was up 1.64% to a record $4,083.42 per ounce. ... Spot silver jumped 2.22% to $51.39/oz, after hitting $51.70/oz, driven by similar factors as gold alongside tightness in the spot market. ...
Bank of America on Monday raised its price forecasts for precious metals, lifting its 2026 outlook for gold to $5,000 an ounce and for silver to $65/oz. BofA is the first major bank to raise its gold price forecast to $5,000/oz for 2026.
On a technical basis, gold’s and silver’s Relative Strength Index stands at 80 and 83, respectively, indicating the metals are overbought. ...
Sunday, October 12, 2025
The total value of all the stocks on the U.S. stock market is now 216% of GDP
... The total value of all the stocks on the U.S. stock market is now 216% of gross domestic product, a metric once cited by Warren Buffett as his favorite yardstick for whether the market was cheap or expensive. The current reading is “one of the highest levels on record,” according to calculations by Jennifer Nash at Advisor Perspectives. According to another long-running measure, the Tobin’s Q, the market is more than twice average valuations. ...
More.
Delusional Trump promised 9-cent electricity within 12 months and doubled electricity generating capacity "quickly" in Detroit in October 2024
We haven't seen 9-cent electricity since 2003 and aren't likely to ever again, and doubling generating capacity will take well into the 2040s, twenty more years.
Piped utility gas costs 15% more on average than when he spoke, while the average price of gasoline is basically flat but falling.
We'll get updated data this week maybe, since despite the shutdown the administration is pledging to report the consumer price index figures.
But the main point is, Trump has no idea what he's talking about.
Delusional Donald Trump thinks Joe Biden was in charge of the FBI on Jan 6, 2021
That's the thing about Donald Trump. Even when he's in charge he's not.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)