My 15-year old son recently told me he doesn't want to go to college. Instead, he plans to be an electrician.My pride as a father swelled. He gets it.Don't get me wrong, he could do very well in an undergrad program. He's far smarter than his old man.But he and his friends understand that America's college system is dying. For most people today it's a bad investment.Students are graduating with $1...Read More

News this week that Elon Musk will soon be departing his "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) is a grim reminder of what happens when you challenge big spending DC. Unfortunately, the lesson once again is that when you challenge the empire, the empire eventually strikes back.President Trump rode into office with the help of Elon Musk's ambitious plan to cut two trillion dollars in spending...Read More

Tech stocks have staged an impressive comeback since their recent mini-crash.Is the dip over? Back to normal, with the Mag 7 once again taking center stage?Not so fast.American tech stocks face a number of challenges which could stop a new bull market in its tracks.The risk we're going to discuss today is the possibility of another surge in Chinese AI technology.You may recall that earlier this ye...Read More

Using AI can be magical. It has helped me understand obscure investment concepts which aren't covered well anywhere else.It has shown my son exactly how to do a geometry problem, so I don't have to relearn something forgotten 30 years ago.AI has helped me understand legal contracts which previously would have required paying a lawyer hundreds of dollars per hour.Magical.At other times, it becomes...Read More

Warren Buffett, the Oracle of Omaha, is facing a peculiar problem these days: he has too much cash.Berkshire Hathaway is sitting on an eye-watering $325 billion in dry powder, a record high. Historically, Buffett has always been eager to deploy capital when the odds are in his favor. But today, even he admits he’s struggling to find value in this overvalued market.Which leads to a fascinatin...Read More

"Death is not something to be feared. It is just a part of life," the priest explained.We were listening to the funeral oration for one of our workers who died suddenly last week. A young man, he got pneumonia… and then, on the way to the hospital, died of a heart attack."We do not fear death," the Padre continued. "Because God let his only son die. We follow his example. And we do so in the...Read More

In the 1975 sci-fi story A Song for Lya, two officials are sent to the planet Shkeen to investigate a grotesque alien parasite known as the Greeksha.The Greeksha is a gelatinous, oozing lifeform which attaches itself to human skin.The investigators are surprised to learn that natives of the planet willingly infect themselves, reporting a deep sense of joy, divine peace, and unity once bound togeth...Read More

Time flies. We're at the 100th day of President Trump's second term.One piece of good news is that America's southern border is as secure as it's ever been in modern times. Trump and his people fixed that wide-open, Biden-era problem quite fast, by the novel approach of applying existing law. Amazing! Who knew?Now the country doesn't have to deal with 10-15,000 new arrivals every day, unknown, un-...Read More

Colorado-based start-up Alta Resource Technologies has garnered more funding, including from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, to advance its protein process for separating critical minerals from ore. A $4.4 million investment was co-led by Silicon Valley's Data Collective Venture Capital and Voyager Ventures with participation from Orion Industrial Ventures of New York and In-Q-Tel (IQT) - a...Read More

With so much attention focused on U.S. stock markets, it seems timely to pivot away from stocks for the moment and consider the global perspective. Globalization may be dying in terms of trade and supply chains, but financial markets are inextricably linked in ways that relatively few understand.King Dollar Still RulesThe dollar still dominates the global financial system despite the cracks in the...Read More

During President Trump's first term in office, he made good progress on building the Keystone XL pipeline.Biden ruined it.This energy artery would have brought 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Canada's Alberta region down to the American Midwest. It would have eliminated the need for costly and dangerous rail transport, lowered energy costs, and created high-paying jobs.But Keystone XL was held...Read More

The U.S. dollar remains the king of currencies. For now, at least.The greenback's share of global foreign exchange reserves sits around 58%. However, back in 2000 the dollar was even more dominant with a 72% market share.Meanwhile China's yuan only makes up about 2.2% of global forex reserves, but that's up from 1.1% in 2016. The currency's share of global payments is higher at around 4.7%.China's...Read More

It's a subject we analyze continually, and we have recommended gold as part of a sound investment portfolio for years. Today the dollar price of gold is hovering near all-time highs over $3,300 per ounce.Gold has been on a tear lately. It was $1,830 as of October 5, 2023. At today's prices, that marks a 75% surge in just 18 months. Gold has outperformed stocks by a wide margin this year, but it ha...Read More

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway’s late Vice Chairman and Warren Buffett’s longtime bosom buddy, achieved legendary status in investing circles. But Munger's genius doesn't rest in poring over spreadsheets or stock-picking scanners. Instead, he's famous for using "mental models" guiding principles and ways of thinking that he's curated from a broad spectrum of disciplines.Munger's...Read More

Buenos Aires looks much the same as always. But there's a new energy. Walking around the Palermo Soho neighborhood, we see more construction…more new shops…new restaurants…"Things have gotten better since Milei took over," was the judgment of our taxi driver. "Not everything… but people are not sitting around anymore.""He's right," said a business friend. "Before, I had a h...Read More

Stagflation is a grim economic diagnosis. High inflation, stagnant growth, and elevated unemployment.The United States from 1972-1982 is the textbook case. Inflation raged as high as 14%, real economic growth was practically non-existent, and unemployment reached 9.7%.Now the threat of stagflation once again looms large. Inflation is set for a comeback, growth is slowing, and widespread layoffs ha...Read More

Mark your calendar for tomorrow, Wednesday, April 23, at 2pm Eastern Time for a live broadcast from Jekyll Island, Georgia, where the U.S. Federal Reserve was conceived. Tune in, at no cost to you.Paradigm Press Group is hosting a special, online, subscribers-only event at ground zero of the U.S. dollar as we know it (yes, "as we know it" because it used to be something very different). We'll come...Read More

The mining sector helped raise $10.85 million Saturday to launch a five-year pan-Canadian glioblastoma research program, lifting the Daffodil Ball's 29-year total to $38.85 million.Adam Lundin spoke in honour of his father, Lukas Lundin, founder of the Lundin Group, who died in July 2022 at age 64 from glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer."When Dad was sick, it was tragic but we turned that tr...Read More

According to the latest survey of fund managers by Bank of America, 49% say that gold is the most crowded trade.This marks the first time in 2 years that the Magnificent 7 tech stocks did not top the "overcrowded" survey.However, there's a problem here. The fund managers responding to this survey clearly don't know much about the gold market. My guess is they have not positioned their clients for...Read More

AI is set to usher in a new industrial revolution.To prepare, I've been brushing up on past industrial revolutions, starting with the first one, which took place from around 1750 to 1830.A few of the more disruptive inventions from this period include:Steam enginesMechanized factoriesPower looms (textiles)Stocking frames (knitting)Coke smelting (iron tech)The adoption of these tools completely cha...Read More