The Gold And Silver Boom Is Ominous

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

We’ve not seen days like these for gold and silver since the late 1970s. It is nothing short of spectacular for investors and hoarders of the tried and true metals. People who have kept the faith in the real are being rewarded. For everyone else, these are scary signs concerning what might be coming our way.

For thousands of years, these two metals have been the most valued in human experience. That’s why they became money, which is the good we acquire to buy other goods. Money becomes that because the market selects the good in question. It’s the most marketable commodity.

Gold and silver have always fit the description because they have uniform quality, have a high value per unit of weight, they are durable, and are highly divisible. So they became money in most places in the industrializing world.

I recently bought some old U.S. quarters and dimes, which were made of silver. The price is far above the stated value because the money was devalued, while the specie value kept rising. They are really wonderful to hold and own because they serve as a reminder of what sound money means. They also symbolize economic and financial independence.

It’s been half a century since the age of fiat money dawned. The United States has tried an experiment to make due with a currency that has no underlying integrity. It’s just paper or just digits. This was supposed to be more modern. We turned our backs on the “barbarous relic,” as J.M. Keynes called gold.

The prediction made early in the fiat age was that these metals would fall in value to reflect their industrial uses.

The monetary premium would disappear because they would no longer be money. The intellectuals, not the relics, would be in charge now.

The very opposite happened.

Throughout the 1970s, both gold and silver boomed. It was a massive vote of confidence in the real and an insult to the new elites who promised a better system. It humiliated them.

We seemed to have embarked on another wave of the same. They are both soaring.

Source: Bloomberg

For all the world, this feels like a flight to the real. Central banks want gold and silver. Large investors. Heavily leveraged brokers. Huge institutions. Regular consumers. Everyone is grabbing as much of the stuff as possible right now.

Will there be a correction? Maybe. But this is truly worrisome. It reveals a lack of confidence in our fiat world.

The data right now seems to back up a genuine cause for worry. Inflation nearly disappeared completely once Trump took office. It happened without explanation. Maybe it was a reflection of optimism by business that they could eat more of the increased wholesale costs because big profits were headed their way.

While dramatic things are happening under Trump in many areas—immigration, trade, cuts in the power and reach of the civil service, the end of DEI, new liberties in speech, truth in public health—other realms have not been so great. Spending is out of control, still. The Fed has accelerated quantitative easing yet again. And the Trump administration is pushing for lower interest rates.

Meanwhile, inflation is no longer declining. It is increasing.

This is not a good trend. It is ominous for the Trump administration.

If there is one force in the world capable of wiping out all the good that has happened since January 2025, it is inflation. If people cannot pay their bills, all of politics becomes theater. People will blame Trump, rightly or wrongly. This will be on his watch.

There is this long history of governments being unaware of the inflation problem until it is too late. The Weimar central bank of 1920 had no idea that the complete destruction of the German currency was three years into the future. This is because central bankers always and everywhere are convinced that they have matters under control.

They do have things under control until they do not. This is the worry. The Fed right now needs to defy the Trump administration and keep rates high and money tight. They could in fact prompt a recession but this can be mitigated with deregulation and a lower tax burden.

What is not easily fixed is a second wave of inflation. This is precisely what the increase in precious metals prices portends. It is sending a grave signal that markets are unconvinced that the Trump administration has the fiscal and monetary situation under control. Truth is that it does not. The debt problem is getting worse, not better. The red ink seems to flow regardless of whatever DOGE has done and regardless of all the cuts in bureaucracy and agency costs.

Here is the root cause of the gold and silver boom. It represents a flight to safety in anticipation of some possible crisis in the future. But there are other matters too, such as an emerging regional bank crisis. There are lingering issues concerning commercial real estate yet resolved. No one knows for sure how firm or shaky the fiat financial system truly is.

A serious financial crisis could in fact be around the corner. Housing is out of control. Financial markets have gone absolutely bonkers over AI. The leverage in every sector is without precedent. It’s all rooted in a belief that a fiat world is practicable and possible. But is it really? Many people are starting to doubt it.

When you hold physical gold and silver, you feel it and know it. It is the real deal. No permissions. No governments. No authorities. No brokers. It’s secure value and nothing more. It represents independence and freedom.

Remember that we live in a time when trust is lost in nearly everything. It makes sense that this would extend to financial intermediaries too. No one is putting 100 percent of their net wealth into precious metals. Investing is all about hedging risk in many directions, involving many scenarios.

Apparently one of those scenarios that is being entertained among people with big money is the possibility of complete financial and monetary breakdown. The Trump administration needs to pay close attention to this and the signal it is sending. There are ways to fix this problem but it is going to require some very hard decisions.

The markets never tell the perfect truth but they are sending a message that deserves close attention. Gold and silver were supposed to be gone by now but here we are. They are back again and with ferocity.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 22:10

US Drops To Historic Low In 'Most Powerful Passports' Ranking

The United States has slid off the Top 10 most powerful passports for the first time since Henley & Partners started publishing their index 20 years ago.

As Statista's Anna Fleck details below, where the U.S. appeared in rank seven last year when it enabled citizens to enter 188 countries without major restrictions, it has now dropped to rank 12, with visa-free entry to just 180.

This is a level of freedom also experienced by passport holders in Malaysia.

You will find more infographics at Statista

The U.S. passport has fallen a long way in the past decade, having appeared in first place in 2014.

In the past year alone, several access changes drove the decline, including a loss of visa-free access to Brazil due to a lack of reciprocity. China then started to offer visa-free travel to several European nations, but notably excluded the U.S. from the change. This was followed by changes from Papua New Guinea and Myanmar, which further eroded the US score while boosting other passports. Newer changes included Somalia’s launch of a new eVisa system and Vietnam’s decision to exclude the U.S. from its latest visa-free additions.

Singapore once more is recognized as having the most powerful passport in the world, with its citizens able to visit 193 countries and territories without a prior visa, according to the Henley Passport Index. South Korea comes in second place, with its citizens able to visit 190 countries, followed by Japan with access to 189 countries, then Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain and Switzerland with access to 188.

At the other end of the scale, the situation is very different.

For passport holders in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, for example, travel is much more restrictive. The Afghan passport wields the least power of the ranking, with just 24 destinations permissible visa-free. The situation in Syria and Iraq isn’t much better, at 26 and 29 destinations, respectively.

Henley & Partners also created a list called the Henley Openness Index, showing how many other nationalities can enter a given country without a visa.

Despite the U.S. having access to 180 destinations visa-free, it only allows 46 other nationalities to enter without a visa, placing it in rank 77 out of 199 countries and territories.

The Henley Passport Index draws from data from the International Air Transport Authority (IATA), including 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 21:35

The World Has Woken Up To China's Supply Chain Weaponization: Navarro

Authored by Eva Fu via The Epoch Times,

The world has now woken up to the consequences of China dominating global supply chains, said White House trade adviser Peter Navarro.

“That’s kind of the state of play,” he said at an Oct. 17 event at the Council on Foreign Relations.

“The world has fundamentally changed based on what we’ve observed, and the world will not go back to sleep on this.”

The comments note a contrast in global attitude to when he served at the White House during the first Trump administration.

In 2017, Navarro was a key driver directing the administration to conduct a nine-month review of the U.S. defense industrial base. The resulting 146-page report, released in the following October, identified China as “a significant and growing risk to the supply of materials and technologies deemed strategic and critical to U.S. national security.”

When it comes to critical energetic materials for munitions and missiles, the report noted, there’s often “no other source or drop-in replacement material.” And in cases where that option exists, it added, the time and cost can be prohibitive—sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars each.

“My job, literally every day, is to worry about whether we have enough magnets or pharmaceuticals or ball bearings or whatever it is that we need,” Navarro said, citing an old proverb: “The war was lost through a horseshoe.”

“You cannot project power if you surrender production; you cannot deter aggression when your supply chains run through your opponent’s ports; you can’t lead the free world if you can’t make what the free world needs.”

Now, the Chinese regime’s economic aggression is getting harder to overlook.

“My job is a lot easier, because I don’t have to convince anybody anymore.

“And what’s extraordinary to me is that it’s not just in this magnet issue, it’s not just us—it’s the whole world.”

President Donald Trump a week ago unveiled an additional 100 percent tariff on imports from China, citing Beijing’s “aggressive” restrictions on rare earth elements, which are used in virtually all electronic devices, and the regime has a near-monopoly on.

Trump on Friday acknowledged that the high levy is not sustainable but suggested he saw no other option.

“They forced me to do that,” the president said in a Fox Business Network segment aired on Friday, adding that the United States is still seeking a “fair deal.”

“China has ripped us off from day one,” he said.

President Donald Trump meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, on Oct. 17, 2025. Tom Brenner/AFP via Getty Images

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Friday confirmed he will meet with a Chinese delegation in Malaysia a week from now to prepare for an expected U.S.–China summit in South Korea.

“We hope that China will show the respect that we have shown them, and I am confident that President Trump, because of his relationship with President Xi [Jinping], will be able to get things back on a good course,” he told reporters during a bilateral meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Trump, speaking alongside Bessent, said the tariffs have put the United States in a strong position and that he anticipates “a deal that will be good for both” countries from the summit.

“But you have to understand, we never got anything from China. It was a one-way street for many years.”

If Beijing refuses to be a reliable trading partner, the United States and allies may have to decouple, Bessent warned earlier.

The European Union has signaled its readiness to coordinate with the United States in countering China’s rare earth stranglehold.

“This is actually an area of common interest with our friends in the U.S. If we stick together we can much better pressure China to act in a fair way,” said Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 21:00

More Americans Experienced Homelessness During Biden's Term

The number of adults experiencing homelessness is on the rise in the United States.

As Statista's Anna Fleck shows in the chart below, using data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 771,480 people were living in a state of homelessness in 2024, marking an 18 percent increase from the year before.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Two thirds of these were individuals, while one third were people in families.

Last year saw a particularly worrying rise in the number of families entering homelessness, up 39 percent from 2023, as individuals saw a 9.6 percent rise.

While it remains more common for men to experience homelessness than women in the U.S., at 459,568 men (60 percent) to 302,660 women (40 percent), the gap is narrowing.

According to an analysis by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, between 2015 and 2023, 25,665 women and 56,085 men newly entered homelessness. However, from 2023 to 2024, the number of newly homeless women surged to 52,651, while the number of men rose to 64,408. Put another way, women accounted for 31 percent of newly homeless individuals from 2015 to 2023, but that share rose to 45 percent in the 2023–2024 period, with men making up the remaining 55 percent. Although unsheltered homelessness declined for both men and women between 2023 and 2024, men remained more likely to be unsheltered.

As Covid-era protection programs expired and the cost-of-living crisis hit the country, homelessness numbers rose. At the same time, Covid restrictions on shelter capacity ended, leading to more homeless individuals living in shelters once again.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 20:25

Most Of The Population Of The World Lives In A Nation Where Christians Are Being Persecuted

Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

There are about 8 billion people living in our world today, and well over half of them live in a country where Christians are being persecuted.

Of course that would come as quite a shock to the vast majority of the Christians that are living in the western world, because they never hear much about the nightmarish things that are being done to Christians in nations such as China, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and North Korea. Globally, the persecution of Christians is getting worse with each passing year, but since the mainstream media mostly ignores what is going on most of us just assume that it really isn’t a big deal. But the truth is that what is being done to our brothers and sisters all over the world is absolutely horrifying.

There are 1.4 billion people living in China today.  Children under 18 are constitutionally prohibited from attending church, and adults are only allowed to attend state-controlled churches that are very tightly restricted.  Underground churches are very popular, but those that lead those underground churches can be grabbed by the government at any time.  In fact, dozens of Chinese pastors were just rounded up…

Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018.

The detentions, which come amid renewed China-U.S. tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called on Sunday for the pastors’ immediate release.

Pastor Jin Mingri, the founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said his daughter, Grace Jin, and a church spokesperson, Sean Long.

Sharing the gospel on the Internet is a crime in China, and that is apparently what these pastors are being charged with…

Under the Chinese Communist Party’s absolutist Code of Conduct for Religious Clergy on the Internet, Jin & Co. stand accused of “suspicion of the illegal use of information networks” for the “illegal dissemination of religion information.”

That is, preaching the Gospel online is a crime in Xi’s China; these pastors are now at risk of years-long detention, often without charge or trial, and likely abuse if not torture while locked up.

India also has a population of 1.4 billion, and Christianity has become very popular there in recent decades.

Unfortunately, those that do choose to go to church in India do so with the realization that they could be attacked by Hindu extremists at any moment…

Hindu extremists in central India ransacked a church’s worship building, burned Bibles and assaulted every member, causing one to lose consciousness, sources said.

In Chhattisgarh state’s Dhamtari District, the Hindu nationalists attacked during the independent Penial Prayer Fellowship’s worship service in Borsi village, said Pastor Wakish Sahu, who leads the church along with his 57-year-old father, Mannohan Sahu.

“They forcibly entered the church, disrupted the worship service and were carrying wooden rods and shouting slogans like ‘Jai Shri Ram’ [Hail lord Rama],” Pastor Wakish Sahu told Morning Star News.

Threatening the Christians, the attackers told them to stop gathering for worship, he said. They broke all the chairs, fans and musical instruments, then collected all of the Christian literature along with the Bibles and burned them.

Sadly, this was not an isolated incident.

In the state of Manipur alone, literally hundreds of churches have been burned to the ground during the past couple of years…

Tomas (not his real name) is a church minister in Manipur, Northeast India. He had teary eyes when he recalled what happened on May 3, 2023.

“I have never seen such violence in my lifetime,” he said. “They systematically ransacked our places. That first night, they burnt down a church nearby. The sky turned red by flames.”

A few months later, it was reported that 250 churches of different denominations had been burnt. For several weeks, the manhunt continued.

Over 100 people died. The trauma is unimaginable, especially among women and children.

Indonesia has a total population of 283 million people, and 220 million of them are Muslims.

Christians are very much in the minority, and Islamic extremist groups “have encouraged and engaged in violence against Christians”…

Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, with a total of more than 220 million Muslims, or about 13 percent of the world’s Muslim population. While most Indonesian Muslims practice an animistic and superstitious version of Islam known as “folk” Islam, proponents of Islamic extremism have encouraged and engaged in violence against Christians. The wickedness of these attacks has led many Muslims to question Islam and to be more open to the gospel.

There are 232 million precious people that live in Nigeria, and I recently wrote an entire article about the genocide of Christians that is currently taking place in that nation.

Radical Islamists regularly attack Christian communities, and the death toll has been catastrophic…

According to a report issued in August by the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (Intersociety), an African nongovernmental group that documents human rights violations, in the first seven months of this year alone, more than 7,000 Christians were killed in Nigeria.

Christians of various denominations and moderate Muslims regularly die at the hands of Boko Haram, Fulani militants and other violent actors.

Numbers vary and are difficult to verify, but between 2009 and 2023 in Nigeria, Intersociety reports at least 52,000 Christians killed, 18,500 abducted and unlikely to have survived, and more than 20,000 churches and Christian schools attacked.

Throughout the Middle East, if a Muslim converts to Christianity it can be considered blasphemy.

One of the countries where blasphemy can result in a death sentence is Pakistan.  251 million people live in that nation, and those that are already Christians are often given the most degrading jobs…

In predominantly Muslim Pakistan, blasphemy laws are egregiously used to target and punish Christians for following Jesus. Christ followers are often discriminated against and not given equal opportunities in employment. Jobs like sewer maintenance and street sweepers are typically reserved for Christians, and believers are jailed for their faith if they are found to have violated the nation’s strict blasphemy laws.

Afghanistan has a population of 42 million, and it is right next door to Pakistan.

Ever since the Taliban took control again, things have gotten much worse for Afghan believers…

For Christians who converted from Islam, publicly affirming their faith in Afghanistan has always been in danger. Since the return of the Taliban on August 15, 2021, it is even more dangerous. The Taliban regime believes that formally converting from Islam to Christianity deserves the death penalty.

Their threats are fierce. Christians in Afghanistan are forced to keep their faith underground. They fear detention, torture or even a death sentence.

Iran borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It has a population of 91 million, and converting to Christianity is strictly forbidden…

In Iran, the Christian faith is tolerated only to a certain extent, primarily among historical Armenian and Assyrian communities. However, converting to Christianity from Islam is considered apostasy and can lead to severe punishment, including death. Christians often face arbitrary arrests and are prohibited from sharing their faith with Muslims.

I couldn’t conclude this article without including North Korea.

It has a population of 26 million, and the Christian faith is not tolerated at all.

In fact, if you are discovered to be a Christian, you and your entire family could be shipped off to a concentration camp where you will be worked until you drop dead…

If your Christian faith is discovered in North Korea, you could be killed on the spot. If you aren’t killed, you will be deported to a labour camp and treated as a political criminal. You will be punished with years of hard labour that few survive. And it’s not only you who will be punished: North Korean authorities are likely to round up your extended family and punish them too, even if your family members aren’t Christians.

There is no church life in North Korea. It’s impossible to gather for worship or prayer, and even secret worship and prayer is at great risk. Official spies could inform on you, if they have any indication that you are a Christian, and so could your neighbours or teachers.

So far in this article I have discussed 8 countries that have a total population of 3.7 billion, and I haven’t even mentioned dozens of other countries where Christianity is either illegal or very highly restricted.

Here in the United States, we are still free to worship as we please, but our moral standards are eroding at a very rapid pace…

Only 43% of these churchgoers now call themselves “pro-life,” down sharply from 63% in 2023. When it came to the traditional (biblical) view of family, 46% believe it is a marriage between one man and one woman with children. However, that number is even lower (34%) among Gen Z.

The three groups with the strongest support for the biblical idea of family were Asian believers (55%), Pentecostal members (56%), and born-again Christians (59%).

The study also found that about 51% believe the Bible’s message on abortion is straightforward, a drop from 65% in 2023.

If we are willing to compromise this much now, how will we fare when we are faced with real persecution during the years ahead?

As I have repeatedly warned my readers, we need to be preparing believers in the western world for what is coming.

The persecution that Christians in other countries must endure has made them strong.

Meanwhile, western believers have gotten very soft.

We better toughen up fast, because perilous times are rapidly approaching.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 19:50

Engineering Desperation

'Camus' writes on X that in a stark analysis, journalist Whitney Webb dissects the fundamental mechanism of control being rolled out globally: the desperate need for our consent.

The entire digital architecture - from government-backed CBDCs and stablecoins to the linchpin of Digital ID - is designed to fail without one crucial element: a captive user base.

They cannot build the digital prison if no one enters voluntarily.

Their strategy, Webb warns, is a classic “carrot and stick.”

The allure of convenience and financial incentives is the “carrot” used to lure the masses in.

Once dependency is established, “out comes the stick.”

The ultimate goal is to engineer desperation.

By attacking our wealth and controlling wealth transfers, they create a population fixated on survival.

When you are desperate, rational thought erodes.

The hierarchy of needs is weaponized; you stop worrying about civil liberties or constitutional rights when you are fighting to survive.

This is the core of the problem-reaction-solution paradigm. They create the crisis, anticipate our fearful reaction, and then offer their pre-planned, liberty-eroding “solution.”

In a stark analysis, journalist Whitney Webb dissects the fundamental mechanism of control being rolled out globally: the desperate need for our consent.

The entire digital architecture—from government-backed CBDCs and stablecoins to the linchpin of Digital ID—is designed to… pic.twitter.com/bd4nOHljDB

— Camus (@newstart_2024) October 17, 2025

The critical question Webb leaves us with is not how to fight back later, but how we can insulate ourselves and our communities now - to refuse the reaction and collapse their solution before it ever begins.

h/t 'Camus'

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 19:15

Nearly 7 In 10 American Adults Meet New Definition Of Obese: Study

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Almost 70 percent of American adults are considered obese under a revamped definition of obesity, according to a peer-reviewed study published in the JAMA Network Open and conducted by researchers affiliated with the Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital.

An overweight woman sits at the water's edge as she enjoys the hot weather on the sea front in Bournemouth, England, on April 14, 2007. Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Traditionally, obesity was defined as having an elevated body mass index (BMI), calculated by dividing a person’s weight by their height. Earlier this year, the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology published a new definition of obesity, which incorporated anthropometrics, which include body measurements such as waist circumference, waist to height ratio, and waist to hip ratio, in addition to BMI, the study said.

An individual is now classified as obese under three conditions—if they have an elevated BMI plus at least one elevated anthropometric measure or a BMI greater than 40; or at least two elevated anthropometric measures irrespective of BMI; or excess body fat, according to the study.

Researchers analyzed the U.S.-based All of Us database to determine the prevalence of obesity under the new definition.

Of the 301,026 participants aged 18–80 years included in the analysis, 128,992 individuals (42.9 percent) were deemed to be obese under the traditional BMI-based criteria. But under the new definition, 206,361 individuals, or 68.6 percent, were considered obese. Obesity was found to be more prevalent with older age.

“We already thought we had an obesity epidemic, but this is astounding,” said co-first author Lindsay Fourman, according to an Oct. 15 report by The Harvard Gazette, the official news website for Harvard University.

“With potentially 70 percent of the adult population now considered to have excess fat, we need to better understand what treatment approaches to prioritize.”

According to the study, 78,047 participants (25.9 percent) who were not classified as obese under the traditional definition were reclassified as having obesity under the anthropometrics-only criteria. Among these individuals, 22.3 percent had a BMI traditionally classified as underweight or normal, with the remaining in the overweight category.

The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology guideline also introduced the concept of clinical and preclinical obesity. Clinical obesity refers to people who have obesity-associated organ dysfunction and/or physical limitation, while preclinical obesity pertains to individuals without such obesity-related issues.

Under the new definition, 36.1 percent of overall participants had clinical obesity, researchers found. Individuals with BMI plus anthropometric obesity were found to have a higher proportion of clinical obesity.

“We found that approximately half of participants classified as having obesity under the new definition also exhibited organ dysfunction and/or physical limitation consistent with clinical obesity,” said the study.

“Our analyses suggest that the new definition of clinical obesity appropriately designates individuals with obesity who are at the highest long-term risk of incident diabetes, cardiovascular events, and mortality.”

The study was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health, American Heart Association–Harold Amos Medical Research Faculty Development Program, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Robert A. Winn Excellence in Clinical Trials Award Program from the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation.

One of the researchers revealed conflicts of interest, having received grant support and personal fees from pharma company Chiesi Farmaceutici. Another researcher received fees from Exavir Therapeutics and Marathon Asset Management, as well as grant support from Kowa Pharmaceuticals America Inc., Gilead Sciences Inc., and Viiv Healthcare.

“We have always recognized the limitations of BMI as a single marker for obesity because it doesn’t take into account body fat distribution,” said senior author of the study Steven Grinspoon.

“Seeing an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in this new group of people with obesity, who were not considered to have obesity before, brings up interesting questions about obesity medications and other therapeutics.”

Obesity in United States

According to a January 2024 post by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity is a “common, serious, and costly chronic disease” in the United States. The agency estimated that one in five children and two in five adults in the country are obese.

Obesity can be particularly harsh for children, as it can lead to numerous health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. As for adults, people with obesity have a higher risk of developing several diseases such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and certain cancers.

The CDC attributed the prevalence of obesity to factors such as fewer than one in 10 people eating the recommended daily amount of vegetables, only one in four adults fully meeting their physical activity requirements, and less than one in four youths getting sufficient aerobic physical activity.

According to the agency’s 2023 Adult Obesity Prevalence Maps for 48 states, the District of Columbia, and three territories, all locations had an obesity prevalence of higher than 20 percent.

The highest obesity prevalence was in the Midwest at 36 percent, closely followed by the South at 34.7 percent, the CDC said.

“Three states (Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia) had an obesity prevalence of 40 percent or greater.”

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Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 18:40

Supreme Court Won't Exempt California Schoolchild From Vaccination Mandate

Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 17 rejected an advocacy group’s emergency application to allow a religious parent to opt her child out of California’s mandatory vaccination policy for schoolchildren.

The court’s decision in We The Patriots USA v. Ventura Unified School District took the form of an unsigned order.

No justices dissented. The court did not explain its ruling.

The applicant, We The Patriots, is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Caldwell, Idaho.

California’s position is that its vaccination mandate keeps children healthy and prevents the spread of dangerous illnesses.

The group filed an emergency application last month with the Supreme Court on behalf of a woman identified as Jane Doe, who is seeking an exemption for her son from the vaccination mandate based on his personal beliefs.

The school district initially granted the son an exemption based on his personal beliefs, but later revoked it. The school district has barred the son from attending school for the time being. His last full day of school attendance was in December 2024.

Doe applied for the exemption based on her understanding that the vaccines required by state law are “researched, developed, tested, and/or produced using cell lines artificially developed from aborted fetuses and contain products that could result in harm to a human recipient,” according to the application.

The Constitution’s First Amendment does not allow “California to exile children from public school because their parents seek to raise them in accordance with their religious beliefs,” the application states, citing the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor.

In that case, the high court ruled for parents in Maryland who, for religious reasons, wanted to opt their young children out of school storybooks that promote LGBT lifestyles.

“That principle protects parents’ right to opt their children out of LGBTQ+ school curricula. It also protects parents’ right to opt their children out of an act that would render them complicit in abortion,” the application reads.

On Sept. 9, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied the group’s request to pause an Aug. 15 order by U.S. District Judge André Birotte. The district judge rejected the group’s request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to suspend the vaccination policy.

We The Patriots had filed with the district court on May 22, asking it to block the enforcement of section 120335 of the California Health and Safety Code against the plaintiffs and other parents and children whose sincere religious beliefs prevent them from receiving the required immunizations.

That state law states that school districts in California may “not unconditionally admit any person as a pupil” unless he or she has been immunized against diphtheria, influenza, measles, mumps, whooping cough, polio, rubella, tetanus, hepatitis B, chickenpox, and “any other disease deemed appropriate” by the state public health department.

The district court previously rejected a prior application for a temporary restraining order on June 17, finding that the plaintiffs failed to show that they would face irreparable harm without such an order, according to Birotte.

The school district filed a brief Oct. 1, urging the Supreme Court to dismiss the emergency application.

The case is unusual in that the applicant asked the high court to halt California’s school immunization requirement and recognize a new constitutional entitlement to attend a specific school, not only for the child concerned, but “for an undefined set of ‘all similarly situated’” persons.

“They press that suite of extraordinary remedies on a thin paper record, without an evidentiary hearing or a developed preliminary injunction ruling. That is the litigation equivalent of pulling the fire alarm and asking the building to be emptied before anyone has confirmed there is smoke.”

The district court and Ninth Circuit were right to rule against the applicant, the brief said.

The Epoch Times reached out for comment to We The Patriots’s attorney, Cameron Atkinson of Harwinton, Connecticut, and the school district’s attorney, David Adida of Santa Monica, California.

No replies were received by publication time.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 16:20

New elected Arizona Congressional Representative Adelita Grijalva is blocked from taking office due to Mike Johnson delays in swearing her in to office. Republican Eli Crane is my representative. His lack of support for Representative Adelita Grijalva is causing Arizona to lose representation in the House. At what point does the political party politics stop […]

The post Why are “Mikie” Johnson and Eli Crane Robbing Arizona of Congressional Representation? appeared first on Angry Bear.

 

 

I spoke with Andy Cross and Jason Moser at The Motley Fool about HNTI. It was a surprisingly fun conversation with MF, a firm that built its business on stock picking.

I got to explain why professionals are very good stock buyers, but terrible stock holders and sellers…

See transcripts here or here.

 

Source:
The Motley Fool Interviews Barry Ritholtz: How Not to Invest
By Andy Cross and Jason Moser
Motley Fool  (Oct 13, 2025)

 

The post The Motley Fool Interview: How Not to Invest appeared first on The Big Picture.

Cryptocurrencies are a manifestation of The Greater Fool Theory of investing. A justification for cryptocurrencies is that they are unmoored from any government-regulated currency. Their primary utility, it turns out, is funding criminal activities. Stablecoins are a form of cryptocurrency linked to a government currency (the dollar, the rouble, etc). Of course, tethering the value […]

The post Unstable coins appeared first on Angry Bear.

Jack Smith Referred To DOJ For Misconduct Investigation And Possible Disbarment

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

Former special counsel Jack Smith was criminally referred to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Oct. 16 by multiple Republican lawmakers for alleged misconduct and possible disbarment.

A group of GOP lawmakers, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking her office to refer Smith, who was involved in two federal cases against then-former President Donald Trump, to the Office of Professional Responsibility for an investigation.

A statement from Blackburn’s office said Smith had “allegedly engaged in serious prosecutorial misconduct through the politically motivated Arctic Frost investigation and must face appropriate consequences, up to and including disbarment.”

It was revealed earlier this month that the FBI had obtained cell phone records of several sitting Republican senators.

“As part of Jack Smith’s weaponized witch hunt, the Biden DOJ issued subpoenas to several telecommunications companies in 2023 regarding our cell phone records, gaining access to the time, recipient, duration, and location of calls placed on our devices from January 4, 2021, to January 7, 2021,” Blackburn and several other Republican lawmakers wrote to Bondi on Thursday.

The senators added that they “have yet to learn of any legal predicate for the Biden Department of Justice issuing subpoenas to obtain these cell phone records,” the letter said.

Along with Blackburn, FBI agents had obtained data on the phone use of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), and Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), as well as Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), according to a document that was recently made public by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) on Oct. 6.

Smith wrote in his final report, released earlier this year, that toll records—or records from phones—had shown that Trump allegedly tried reaching out to two senators and told another individual to call members of Congress and suggested they try to delay the certification of the 2020 election results.

After Trump was elected last year, Smith ultimately dropped the charges and resigned in January, shortly before the president took office.

In their letter, the lawmakers accused Smith, who obtained records in the FBI’s Arctic Frost probe, of infringing on the rights of the elected officials and violating their respective rights to privacy.

“This is especially true given the invasion of our privacy was directly connected to our core legislative functions protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of our Constitution,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.

“To the best we can tell, Smith’s team went on this fishing expedition for one simple reason: we are Republicans who support President Trump.”

Last week, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee demanded in a letter to Smith that he provide testimony to their panel to understand how he operated in the two investigations into Trump. The lawmakers said that officials who had worked under Smith did not cooperate with their investigation by either invoking their Fifth Amendment right that bars a person from making self-incriminating statements or by declining to answer Republicans’ questions.

In his report sent to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, Smith defended his investigations into Trump. One accused Trump of illegally retaining classified documents, while the other accused him of illegally trying to subvert the 2020 election results.

“Nobody within the Department of Justice ever sought to interfere with, or improperly influence, my prosecutorial decision making,” Smith said in the Jan. 7, 2025, letter.

He also claimed that his dropping charges against Trump after his election win was not a sign that the president should be exonerated from guilt.

Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges and has long said they were part of a politically motivated attempt to denigrate his reelection campaign.

Last week, Smith told a panel that allegations that he acted in a politically motivated manner are false and said he is “very concerned” about attempts to “demonize” career DOJ officials “for political ends.” The discussion was the first time Smith had spoken about his role as a special counsel prosecuting Trump.

So far, Smith has not publicly responded to the Republican lawmakers’ statements about their phone records being obtained. The Epoch Times contacted Smith’s counsel, Peter Koski, for comment on Friday.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 11:40

I was wondering where Joel my fellow writer was today. Normally when I get up out here in Arizona, I see his words. I thought perhaps he was ill. Not so . . . As I read one of his comments elsewhere from yesterday, Joel is out doing what many of us should be doing […]

The post No Kings Day appeared first on Angry Bear.

China Expels 9 Top Generals, Including Two From Communist Party Leadership, In Sweeping Purge

In another major purge likely based on loyalty, China's President Xi Jinping has embarked on another significant series of top level military firings, with the Communist Party having expelled nine senior generals in one of the most sweeping such moves in decades.

A Defense Ministry statement indicated the nine officers are under investigation for "serious financial misconduct." Also unusual is that most of them were three-star generals and formed part of the party's powerful Central Committee.

Illustrative: Chinese President Xi Jinping with various generals in 2023, Xinhua via Getty Images 

And it wasn't just a demotion, but most were booted completely from the armed forces. The defense ministry statement said the nine had "seriously violated party discipline and were suspected of serious duty-related crimes involving an extremely large amount of money, of extremely serious nature, and with extremely detrimental consequences."

They will face legal and military punishment as a result of the investigation which was a "significant achievement in the party and military's anti-corruption campaign."

The most notable figure to get dismissed is He Weidong - among the most senior generals in the group - who was a member of the 24-man Politburo, as well as the country's second-highest-ranking military officer. And he was among powerful leaders immediately after President Xi Jinping, who chairs the Central Military Commission (CMC).

But there had been building speculation that Gen. He had run afoul of Xi and the party and was under a serious probe, given he hadn't been seen in public since Mary.

According to more context from The Wall Street Journal:

Gen. He is the most senior active-duty military officer that Xi has purged, and the first incumbent vice chair of the Central Military Commission, or CMC, to be ousted in nearly four decades. The 68-year-old general, who hasn’t been seen publicly since March, is also the first sitting Politburo member to be investigated since 2017.

China last purged military officials at this level of seniority roughly a decade ago, when the party expelled two retired CMC vice chairmen on corruption charges during Xi’s first term as leader.

China and regional analysts knew something was afoot also when new guidelines issued by the CMC in July called for the elimination of "toxic influence" in the military and set forth what it called "iron rules" for top officers.

Expelled: China's number two general He Weidong (left) and navy admiral Miao Hua (right), AP/Getty Images

Below is the list of nine officers fired and under criminal investigation:

• He Weidong - Vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC)
• Miao Hua - director of the CMC's political work department
• He Hongjun - executive deputy director of the CMC's political work department
• Wang Xiubin - executive deputy director of the CMC's joint operations command centre
• Lin Xiangyang - Eastern Theatre commander
• Qin Shutong - the Army's political commissar
• Yuan Huazhi - the Navy's political commissar
• Wang Houbin - Rocket Forces commander
• Wang Chunning - Armed Police Force commander

There could be more purges to come, given the top dismissals were announced just before next week's annual closed door conclave of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, set for October 20 through the 23rd in Beijing to discuss the next five-year plan.

Next week is expected to reveal more of the 'purge surge'...

Who has Xi purged from the CCP Central Committee?

Attendance at next week's Fourth Plenum will reveal the extent of his recent "purge surge"

If all rumors are true, only 168/205 members (82%) and 159/171 alternates (93%) will be there

And only 17/44 of PLA members (39%)!

1/ pic.twitter.com/E4oSPKKgxN

— Neil Thomas 牛犇 (@neilthomas123) October 15, 2025

Wen-Ti Sung, a fellow at the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub, has been quoted in US media as saying, "Xi is cleaning house for sure. The formal removal of He and Miao means he will get to appoint new members of the Central Military Commission - which has been virtually half empty since March - at the Plenum."

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 11:05

How America's Paper-Money System & The Federal Reserve Plunder American Taxpayers

Authored by Jacob G. Hornberger via The Future of Freedom Foundation,

Given that the Federal Reserve has obviously abandoned its 2 percent target for the rise in prices brought on by its own paper-money inflationary policy, it’s important that we keep in mind how our nation’s paper money-system and the Fed’s inflationary policy plunder and loot the American people.

There is the plunder and looting that takes place through the simple inflationary expansion of the money supply. By inflating the amount of money in circulation, the Fed reduces the value of money sitting in people’s savings accounts or that they receive in income. Their savings and income buy less than before simply because the federal government, through its inflationary policy, has debased the value of money.

This is what has been occurring ever since the U.S. government converted to a paper-money standard during the President Franklin Roosevelt administration during the 1930s. Prior to that time — in fact, for more than 125 years prior to that time — the official money of the American people had been gold coins and silver coins. That’s because the Constitution mandated gold coins and silver coins as the official money of our nation.

But gold coins and silver coins cannot be printed, like paper money can. So, FDR used the excuse of an economic “emergency” to declare a permanent end to our constitutional monetary system. Indeed, he did it without even the semblance of a constitutional amendment. And the U.S. Supreme Court upheld his extraordinary “emergency” power to effectively amend the Constitution through executive order and congressional law, even though the Constitution does not delegate“emergency” powers to either the president or the Congress.

Ever since then — year after year, decade after decade — the value of the paper dollar has gone down. That’s because the federal government found it more convenient to pay for its out-of-control welfare-warfare-regulatory programs through newly printed money than by simply raising income taxes on people.

After all, people get upset when public officials raise their income taxes. With rising prices that come with inflation, most people have no idea that it is federal officials who are causing the prices to rise through inflationary debasement of the value of people’s money. So, they get angry at people in the private sector who are raising their prices to reflect the lower value of the money rather than get angry at people in the government sector who are causing the rising prices through inflationary expansion of the money supply.

Even at an inflationary rate of 2 percent per year, the citizenry are still getting plundered and looted to the tune of at least 2 percent per year. When one compounds that amount year after year, the amount of plunder and looting increases substantially.

But there is another factor to consider — the benefit that an inflationary policy brings to state and local governments in the form of higher property taxes on people’s homes.

Over the years and decades, the Fed’s inflationary policies have caused the value of people’s homes to soar. While this phenomenon has caused people to feel like they are increasing the equity in the home, it actually doesn’t make any real difference at all. Why? Because all the home values in the surrounding area have increased too.

Thus, people quickly discover that selling their home in the hope of acquiring a better home doesn’t work out. In order to benefit from the increased inflationary-induced value of their home, they have to move to another part of the country — one where home values are relatively lower.

The people who love the inflationary increase in home values are state and local government officials. That’s because they rely on property taxes to fund their operations — and those property tax revenues are based partly on the assessed value of people’s homes.

Thus, as the value of people’s homes increase due to the Fed’s inflationary debasement policies, the real-estate taxes that state and local officials are assessing on people’s homes are constantly going up. That means that while people are receiving no real benefit from the increase in their home values, they are suffering a constantly worsening situation in terms of the real-estate taxes they are paying, which are going up year after year, decade after decade.

According to ChatGPT, with a 2 percent inflation rate, the nominal value of someone’s house, given compound interest, will increase by 22 percent over a ten-year period, meaning, as ChatGPT states, its “real purchasing power remains about the same.”

But notice something important: while the real purchasing power remains the same, the same can’t be said of the amount of property taxes that must be paid to state and local officials.

The property tax burden is constantly increasing because the taxes are being assessed on the nominal value of the home, not the real purchasing-power value of the home.

Thus, it’s important to keep in mind that America’s paper-money monetary system that FDR foisted upon our nation on a permanent basis, which is reinforced by the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve, which was established in 1913, ends up looting and plundering people not only at the federal-government level but also at the state and local government level.

 

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Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 10:30

The US Has Given Ukraine The Most Aid To Date

Following Zelensky's trip cap-in-hand to Washington this week, we note that (to date) the United States has been the biggest supporter of Ukraine in terms of aid, according to data from the Ukraine Support Tracker compiled by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

EU institutions (including the European Commission and the Council), followed by Germany and the United Kingdom have been the next biggest contributors.

The following chart,m via Statista's Anna Fleck, looks at financial assistance (such as loans and grants), humanitarian aid (like food and medical supplies), and the value of weapons and equipment delivered. This included in-kind donations to the Ukrainian military and financial support tied to military purposes.

You will find more infographics at Statista

When looking solely at military aid, including weapons and defense-related financial support, Germany ranks second, contributing an estimated €17.7 billion.

The United States remains the largest military backer, however, having delivered weapons and military funds totaling approximately €115 billion between January 24, 2022 and August 31, 2025.

In early March 2025, U.S. military aid was briefly paused, but resumed on March 11 after Ukraine signaled openness to a potential ceasefire.

The USA is now acting as an arms supplier and coordinator within the framework of the newly established NATO PURL initiative.

This involves NATO countries purchasing weapons from the USA, which are then made available to Ukraine.

The Ukraine Support Tracker, maintained by IfW Kiel, systematically records the publicly known support pledged by governments of 31 Western countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, 2022.

It tracks military, financial, and humanitarian assistance, aiming to provide a factual basis for ongoing discussions about international aid to Ukraine.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 09:55

When The Curve Speaks: What The (UK) Bond Market Is Telling Us

Authored by Ben Lord via BondVigilantes.com,

In 2020, the bond market awoke from a decade-long slumber and moved long-dated bonds higher, in what we call a curve steepening, even whilst short-end rates were (possibly) at paradigm lows.

It was easy to look at this steepening move as being driven by the quite justified cutting of interest rates in response to the global pandemic and the seizure in the global economy that took place, and therefore to stop there and ignore any deeper or more subtle message. Looking back at this move, there was an important increase in inflation breakevens, which are simply bond market inflation expectations. You might say that the bond market was trying to tell central bankers that if you combine super-accommodative monetary policy rates with enormous fiscal stimulus that was (again, justifiably given the circumstances) occurring, then inflation will return.

Further, looking back at the moves in bond market inflation expectations, there was a difference in the move in expectations: 5y breakevens rose by a very significant 2.5% (so inflation was expected to be 2.5% higher each year on average for the next 5 years) between early 2020 and early 2022. 10y breakevens rose significantly too, but slightly less at 2% over the same period. These are, in bond market terms, significant repricings to say the least. The bond market was putting up its hand and saying that it was pricing large and long-term increases in inflation. Central bankers believed that this bond market move was ‘transitory’. 30yr breakevens were also up 1.5%, so the bond market clearly disagreed. The rest, as they say, is history. But the damage caused to inflation forecasting credibility may remain for a long time to come.

Source: Bloomberg (13 October 2025).

In the last 18 months or so there has been a renewed steepening in the yield curve, back to levels not that far from the bull steepening move of 2020 to 2021 in most western developed markets.

Importantly, in the UK specifically, we are at levels of steepness that are meaningfully greater than they were in 2020 and 2021.

We haven’t often seen such steepness when the starting point for short end rates is so high. Historically, steep curves tend to emerge when policy rates are low and markets are pricing in inflation. This time policy rates are restrictive, yet the long end is demanding more yield. The bond market is telling us something.

The bond market is, for some reason(s), requiring more yield for lending longer – in curve steepness terms – in the UK than many peers (US, Germany), although less than others (Japan).

The bond market is not by any means always right: predictions of recession since 2022 have clearly been misplaced (so far), for example. The second thing that needs to be said is that there are almost certainly many factors at play behind this move. But to me—and the one I want to focus on today—is the difference this time on the driver of the steepening, here in the UK and elsewhere. The recent significant steepening has not been driven by an increase in inflation expectations. At all.

What this means is that, for now at least, the bond market is not increasing term premia for lending to longer-dated government bonds because it is worried about rising inflation in the future.

Source: Bloomberg (30 September 2025).

Therefore, what we need to ask is: why the steepening and why the increase in term premia?

As I’ve said, the truth is that there are probably multiple factors at work.

However, in my opinion there is one factor that dominates all others: fiscal policy.

Indeed, it is a surprise to me that we all speak to our clients and to our colleagues every day at the moment about fiscal risks and issuance expectations in government bonds. We shouldn’t be worrying now when nominal GDP (real GDP and inflation) are running at solid levels that mean that the affordability of government borrowings are manageable. The time to worry about these risks is in a slowdown or a recession: tax receipts fall and expenditures rise, so government borrowing has to rise to plug the gap.

The Chancellor has been resolute in saying she will stick to the fiscal rules the UK government outlined and said all the right things when some politicians and commentators suggested that the bond market should be ignored from a fiscal policy point of view.

That strength is encouraging as bond investors.

But the message from the market is that credibility will matter most when these commitments are tested at upcoming fiscal events.

Looking back, central bankers dismissed bond market signals in 2021, with long-term consequences for credibility in inflation forecasting. The concern today is different:  markets are now paying closer attention to fiscal sustainability. For policymakers, this underlines the value of clarity and consistency on fiscal strategy, given investors remain highly sensitive to signals about future borrowing levels.

Sustained confidence will depend on a credible long-term path. Engaging with these market signals can help ensure borrowing remains affordable and that fiscal policy retains the trust of investors over time.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 09:20

Poland Lets Ukrainian Wanted By Germany In Nord Stream Blasts Walk Free: 'A Just Act'

A Polish court has simply let a Ukrainian citizen suspected by Germany of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022 walk free.

The Polish judge ruling in the case not only decided to ignore the European arrest warrant issued by German authorities last month, but went so far as to say that if the man did have a part in the undersea bombing, then it was a "just" act.

Via Associated Press

The suspect, identified as Volodymyr Zhuravlyov, has been wanted by Germany and the case has attracted international attention and controversy; but upon being freed the crowd in the court room reportedly let out cheers.

He's said to have been a Ukrainian diver involved in the covert operation on behalf of Kiev. "A Ukrainian man suspected of being involved in causing undersea explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in 2022 was arrested in Poland, a spokesperson for the District Prosecutor’s Office in Warsaw said Tuesday," The Associated Press reported last week.

This marked the second recent arrest related to the Nord Stream sabotage investigation, as last month another Ukrainian man was arrested in Italy in connection.

According to more fresh details of these new developments:

Volodymyr Zhuravlov, 46, was arrested near Warsaw Sept. 30 on a German warrant. German prosecutors have described him as a trained diver and allege that he was part of a group that placed explosives on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm three years ago.

The Warsaw District Court rejected his extradition on Friday and ordered his immediate release.

The man’s lawyer, Tymoteusz Paprocki, said ahead of the hearing that “my client doesn’t admit guilt, he didn’t commit any crime against Germany and he doesn’t understand why these charges were made by the German side.” He said he also would argue that no Ukrainian should be charged with any action directed against Russia.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has made clear that it would not be in Poland's interest to hand over the suspect, and has even expressed praise for the suspect.

Tusk said of the Warsaw court having rejected the extradition that it was "rightly so". He then said that "the case is closed."

The mainstream media narrative on this major event which came early in the Ukraine war has shifted dramatically several times. In the opening months, the MSM was lockstep in collectively assuming Russia must have bombed its own key pipelines, effectively economically sabotaging itself and a (at the time) leading European energy export partner.

Then, as we highlighted, there was in 2024 the "bombshell" WSJ Nord Stream report which was a shift, but yet another attempt by mainstream gatekeepers to put official distance between President Zelensky and his supposedly 'rogue' top general at the time who 'oversaw' the covert op. All the while, legendary investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has said the CIA and an elite US Navy team are the real culprits.

Tyler Durden Sat, 10/18/2025 - 08:45

NOTE: I'm on vacation and returning this week. Government data might be rescheduled due to the government shutdown.

The key economic report this week is September Existing Home sales.

For manufacturing, the Kansas City Fed manufacturing survey will be released this week.

----- Monday, October 20th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, October 21st -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Wednesday, October 22nd -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

During the day: The AIA/Deltek's Architecture Billings Index for September (a leading indicator for commercial real estate).

----- Thursday, October 23rd -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released. 

8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for September. This is a composite index of other data.

10:00 AM: Existing Home Sales for September from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).  

The graph shows existing home sales from 1994 through the report last month.

11:00 AM: Kansas City Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for October.

----- Friday, October 24th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

“Immigration, Population, Replacement, Politics and the Economy,” Angry Bear. Immigration, Population Replacement, Politics, and the Economy are what comes together to ensure national growth. In 2006 the rate of population growth was 1 percent. Since then and in 2021, it has decreased to 4 tenths of 1%. With the present administration removing legal and illegal immigrants, […]

The post The U.S.-Born labor force will shrink over the next decade appeared first on Angry Bear.