Monday, December 29, 2025
Gold and silver retreat from new record high prices at $4,549.71 and $83.62
... Spot gold declined 1.4% at $4,470.56 per ounce, after hitting a record high of $4,549.71 on Friday. ...
Spot silver shed 4.8% at $75.32 per ounce, retreating from an all-time high of $83.62 hit earlier in the session. ...
Spot platinum fell 6% to $2,305.15 per ounce, after rising to an all-time high of $2,478.50 earlier in the day, while palladium plunged 13.2% to $1,669.11 per ounce. ...
More.
Sunday, December 28, 2025
One silver observer found someone projecting silver going as high as $1,400 lol
$1,400 silver seems absolutely ludicrous to me, but maybe not $300 silver.
The Coinage Act of 1792 fixed the ratio of silver to gold at 15:1. Gold then was $19.39 and silver was $1.29.
The Coinage Act of 1873 effectively ended this bimetallism in the United States in favor of gold but was not widely understood to have done so until after the fact. By 1913 silver averaged about only sixty cents, for various reasons, and the silver to gold ratio went to about 34:1.
Gold at $4,533 on Friday implies silver at $302 at the 15:1 ratio, but silver is actually only about $80. Divided by 34, however, the implied silver price is about $133. The ratio at about $80 is 57:1.
The main driver of the silver price in our time is industrial, but the ratio is instructive for contextualizing, as the kids say, its relative value.
Saturday, December 27, 2025
Three in four Americans say groceries are so expensive they’ve been forced to cut down on entertainment, travel, clothing, and food and drink away from home
Reported here.
So, what do those of us cut, who long ago completely cut out entertainment, travel, food and drink away from home, and mend the clothes we cannot replace?
Drink period, for starters:
THE alcohol industry has faced financial hardship in 2025, leading to several distilleries filing for bankruptcy as Americans are drinking at the lowest levels in history. ... An August poll conducted by Gallup found that 54% of adults say they consume alcohol, which was down from 58% in 2024 and 62% in 2023. Gallup said the 54% finding is “the lowest by one percentage point in Gallup’s nearly 90-year trend.” ... Gallup found that 53% of Americans said having one or two drinks a day is bad for one’s health, while 37% say it makes no difference and 6% say it’s good for one’s health. ...
More.
Bankruptcies in 2025 surge to a level not seen since 2010
Corporate bankruptcies surged in 2025, rivaling levels not seen since the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, as import-dependent businesses absorbed the highest tariffs in decades.
At least 717 companies filed for bankruptcy through November, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. That’s roughly 14 percent more than the same 11 months of 2024, and the highest tally since 2010. ...
More.
Trump likes to trumpet the billion$ he's collecting in tariffs, but there is no single report which calculates the hundreds of billion$ these bankruptcies must cost the economy over time.
Friday, December 26, 2025
Liberal democracy must solve the problems of Gen Z globally, which works a lot but stays poor, or it will perish
Crushed by soaring rents and living costs and staring down a future where robots and AI threaten their jobs, Gen Z is unleashing a wave of protests that is rattling governments worldwide. ...
More.
Thursday, December 25, 2025
Unbelievably rosy GDP report contained core pce inflation data at 2.9% countering previous rosy core cpi inflation report at 2.6% and indicating rising inflation
The U.S. economy grew at a much greater-than-expected pace in the third quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending, a delayed report released Tuesday showed.
U.S. gross domestic product, a sum of all goods and services produced in the sprawling U.S. economy, expanded by 4.3% in the July-September period, the Commerce Department said in its initial reading of third-quarter growth. Economists polled by Dow Jones expect a gain of 3.2%. ...The economy moved forward during the period despite persistent signs of inflation pressures.
The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s primary inflation gauge, rose 2.8% during the period, and 2.9% for core which excludes food and energy. Both were above prior respective readings of 2.1% and 2.6% and remain well above the Fed’s 2% inflation gauge. Also, the chain-weighted price index, which accounts for changes in consumer behavior such as switching to less expensive products for pricier items, rose 3.8%, a full percentage point above the forecast. ...
As for the GDP report, even if you accept the rosy number as reported, it remains that . . .
Trump's real GDP since 2017 is growing at a compound annual rate which is 5% lower than the rate for 1984-2017; and
Trump's GDP since 2017 is growing at a compound annual rate 21% lower than the rate for 1947-2017.
Meanwhile GDP since 1984 is growing at a compound annual rate which is 28% lower than for 1947-1984.
And GDP since the Great Recession in 2007 is growing at a compound annual rate 42% lower than for 1947-2007.
The results of the era inaugurated by Reagan have been devastating. Real GDP today would be much higher had the previous long term trend continued.
3Q1984 Reagan real GDP of 8252.46 at the pre-Reagan rate of compound annual growth since 1947 would be 36213.94 today instead of 24024.95, 50% higher.
The Trump era is doubling down on stupid, not breaking with it. It is guaranteed to get us nowhere, faster.
It's completely crazy that an entry level ice cream scooper in Brooklyn, New York earns almost as much as an entry level small engine mechanic
Fifty cents an hour less.
It's as if the weight of wealth accumulation by the top 10% has squished and compressed those beneath them into one giant, undifferentiated blob scooping ice cream alongside this woman.
... When I started working at Lady Moo Moo in Bed-Stuy, I found myself surrounded by people who, like me, had already built careers and are now navigating an unpredictable job market. Some had been laid off just as I had. Others, like my colleague who is a sex educator and public health advocate, lost funding in their fields. A few are juggling multiple part-time roles to stay afloat. ... Every shift, I met people who never imagined they would be picking up part-time work: artists, teachers, nonprofit workers, tech employees, museum curators, and neighbors doing their best to make life work in a difficult economy. ...
A Christmas of silver and gold
... Spot gold was down 0.4% at $4,468.96 per ounce, after marking a record high of $4,525.18 earlier in the session. ...
Silver prices have surged 147% year-to-date on strong fundamentals, outpacing bullion’s gain of over 70% during the same period. ...
Silver hit an all-time high of $72.70 but was last down 0.8% at $70.86 an ounce. ...
More.
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Tuesday, December 23, 2025
Because we can't build them ourselves
Manufacturing capacity utilization was down in November, a pale reflection of its former self before globalization.
Same with manufacturing employment.
Manufacturing production was barely up in November and is effectively flat since the Great Recession, before which it was still rising.
Trump stupidly thinks tariffs can reverse all this, when you're supposed to use tariffs to protect what you have, not what you don't.
Monday, December 22, 2025
Stories like this about China destroying the U.S. Dollar just make me want to howl
But hey, what do you expect from MarketWatch?
... As more commodities get priced in yuan instead of dollars, demand for dollars softens. As central banks diversify into gold, they buy fewer Treasurys. As fewer foreigners buy U.S. debt, interest rates drift higher. As the dollar’s purchasing power erodes, everything you import costs more. ...
This, like most of the story, is a load of BS.
Global demand for U.S. debt is at an ALL TIME HIGH, a record $9.2 trillion in the last three months through October.
You'll know the yuan has replaced the dollar when the world buys Chinese sovereign debt instead of ours. And right now the world owns less than $300 billion of Chinese sovereign debt, billion with a B, not trillion with a T.
Nobody trusts China like they trust us.
The writer, who owns gold and silver, wants you to dump long term bonds and buy short term bills and . . . gold and silver. Gee, what a coincidence.
Meanwhile foreign governments continue to prefer long term U.S. Treasuries and own relatively few bills.
And the dollar is relatively strong, not weak as the writer says, in November 2025.
click to enlarge
Democrat minority leader in the House Hakeem Jeffries imitates Nancy Pelosi in sabotage of Congressional stock trading ban legislation
Once again the most progressive Democrat elites, who pushed out Joe Biden, prove that they are not on the side of the people.
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