Wednesday, April 15, 2026
My morning coffee, my Sunday hamburger, my Italian tomatoes, pasta and olive oil, and now even my salad
I coulda mentioned salad the other day, but I didn't.
The average price made a new record high in 1Q2026.
Why BLTs and salad just got more expensive — tariffs, war send tomato prices soaring
This story is about fresh tomatoes, not salad, and it is interesting, but the average price of tomatoes in 1Q2026 still hasn't surpassed 1Q2016.
Adjusted for inflation since 1Q1980, tomatoes could cost $2.64 per pound, but they were only $1.98 in 1Q.
As the story says, canned tomatoes are much cheaper. I make my sauce from stewed whole plum tomatoes from a can, preferably Italian, preferably San Marzano or Parma, but there are many acceptable American brands to choose from.
Mad King Ludwig can't get Kevin Warsh confirmed on time, throws another tantrum at Powell
Powell staying on as acting chair until Trump can get his shit together would be customary procedure, not an anomaly.
Trump threatens to fire Powell if Fed chair doesn’t leave office on his own
Fed nominee Warsh filings detail vast wealth, far exceeding past chairs
... Warsh’s filings detail roughly 1,800 individual assets. Many individual items are identified as being subject to “pre-existing confidentiality obligations” that prevent him from specifying the underlying assets.
Warsh in the filings pledges to divest these assets if confirmed. ...
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
CNBC wholesale prices headline spin zone: "rose much less than expected"; Ragin' inflation reality: "the biggest 12-month gain since February 2023"
And core wholesale inflation in 1Q2026 also rounds to 3.8% yoy, and is right back where we started with Trump in 1Q2025, if you give me 0.04 for 3.77% year over year.
Wholesale prices rose 0.5% in March, much less than expected despite war impact
The producer price index, a gauge of pipeline costs for final demand goods and services, increased a seasonally adjusted 0.5% for the month, well below the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 1.1%.
Excluding food and energy, core PPI was up just 0.1% against the forecast for 0.5%.
On an annual basis, the all-items PPI accelerated 4%, the biggest 12-month gain since February 2023. The core PPI posted a 3.8% annual gain. ...
All items
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| Core |
Monday, April 13, 2026
Ann Coulter, born in 1961, is looking pretty good for a 64 year old boomer, but she is a little testy about it lol
I can see the jowls of 74 forming already. 🤣
My favorite part of this is her concern for the little girls of Iran.
After 911 she didn't care about their little girls at all, when she wanted all these countries invaded, their leaders killed, and everyone converted to Christianity. She didn't want us to be too careful about it either, because we carpet bombed Germany in WWII and killed civilians because it was a war then, and 911 was also a war, even though it wasn't. It too was undeclared just like this one now against Iran, but Ann pretends otherwise.
If Trump had a decent PR machine, he'd be talking about how awful the crackdown in Iran was after the Christmas 2025 university demonstrations. Thousands of Iranians desiring freedom were brutally massacred by the regime. Trump wasn't ready for that, but he did begin the airbridge to Europe and the Middle East in mid-February, beginning the process of shuttling military assets in theatre to confront the Ayatollah. I know because I monitored it myself day after day. This was not a surprise.
Those military assets weren't as strong or ready as they needed to be in the last week of February when Trump got the call from Bibi about the decapitation opportunity, but he pulled the trigger anyway. That's Trump, always reactive, not proactive. He's not the commander in chief many of us would choose, but you fight with the commander you have.
If we had taken Ann's advice in 2001, the Persian Gulf would be a Christian paradise today, and we wouldn't be having this stupid conversation about the terror regime in Iran yet one more time a quarter century later and how to solve that problem.
They have missiles to destroy their neighbors and reach Europe, and they have demonstrated their willingness to do so. It doesn't matter now how it started. They must be stopped.
Sunday, April 12, 2026
Tanker transits in both the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea crawled to a virtual halt on April 10-11
Just two out of the Strait of Hormuz April 10-11, just nine through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait in either direction after Iran attacked the Saudi pipeline to Yanbu on April 8-9.
Gold is up 9.9323% YTD, silver 5.9767%
Silver and gold had a good week:
Silver: $76.60 USD +$4.04 USD +5.57% 1W
Gold: $4,764.80 USD +$112.50 USD +2.42% 1W.
Silver was $72.28 on Jan 1, gold was $4,334.30.
Prices are per APMEX, where the 3M and YTD results just happen to be nearly identical as of April 12th, indicating more stability actually Mar 31 to Apr 12.
The war in Iran has been net negative for both gold and silver in the last 30 days, however, as oil prices rose in a volatile manner, which is where all the betting action went. Gold was down over 7% and silver over 10% in the last 30 days.
The blockade of Iran is likely to cause oil prices to spike much more this week, and precious metals to fade, but you never know from day to day with you know who in charge.
Stackers of precious metals will view future price drops as buying opportunities.
Trump cuts off the flow of Iranian oil with blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, about 1.5 million barrels per day, China most hurt
Trump says U.S. will blockade Strait of Hormuz after Iran peace talks fail
Iran sends millions of oil barrels to China through Strait of Hormuz even as war chokes the waterway
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