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In 1980, when gold peaked at $850/ounce, the share of central bank holdings of foreign exchange reserves in gold was 70%. When gold troughed out at $254/ounce in 1999, it was 10%. Today it’s 25%-30%. Central banks are steadily buying…

Last Friday, President Trump effectively nominated Kevin Warsh to be the next Fed chairman. Warsh, a former Fed Governor, has aligned himself with the President’s criticism of the Fed and a desire for lower rates. Warsh will now have to…

The Friday File: While Google and NVIDIA are leading the charge and cashing in on AI, there are other unheralded winners. One of the biggest, the British Overseas Territory of Anguilla. It lucked into a fortune when ICAAN assigned it…

China’s power grid has installed capacity of 3.9 GW; the US, 1.4 GW. Of course, China is 4x larger and is a manufacturing powerhouse. But in the last four years, the additions to China’s grid have totaled 1.5 GW, more…

For the year ending 6/30/25 (2025), the US population grew 1.8 million, or 0.53%, down from 1% in 2024, the slowest population growth since 0.2% in 2021. The major cause; the drop in net immigration from 2.7 million in 2024…

The most disturbing piece of information from last week’s income data is the confirmation of a complete lack of income growth over the past 12 months. During 11/24, real (after inflation) disposable (after taxes) per capita personal income was $52,324…

While the Fed frets about inflation being above its 2% target, they need to get over themselves. November core PCE, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, came in at 2.79% Y-o-Y, admittedly high. But over the past six months the annualized…

The Friday File: The highest paid professional team mascot is the Denver Nugget’s ‘Rocky the Mountain Lion’ with a salary of a staggering $625,000/year, followed by the Atlanta Hawk’s ‘Harry the Hawk’ at $600,000/year, and the Chicago Bull’s ‘Benny the…

To return home buyer affordability to its pre-Covid level, one of the following must happen: wages must rise 56%, lifting the median household wage to $132,000/year, the 30-year mortgage rate must fall 2.65% (assuming no resulting increase in home prices),…

After comparing $4 trillion of international shipments to the US between 1/24 and 11/25, researchers find foreign exporters absorbed 4% of recent tariff increases, American consumers and importers absorbed the remaining 96%. This shows tariffs, as predicted by economic theory,…