Authored by Michael Clements via The Epoch Times,

Second Amendment advocates are celebrating, and gun control activists are decrying the apparent closing of the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention.

The Trump administration has not confirmed that the office, opened by an executive order from then-President Joe Biden in 2023, is closed.

The office’s website was down the day after President Donald Trump officially took office and remains inactive as of Jan. 23.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment by publication time.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who helped secure funding for the office, decried the closure in a post on the social media platform X.

In remarks on the floor of the House of Representatives on Jan. 22, Frost said the closure would cost lives.

“While lives are stolen, this admin is busy signing executive orders that have nothing to do with helping families and keeping them safe,” he said.

His office did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

The gun control group Brady criticized the reported closure on its website, saying the office had reduced crime involving guns.

“The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention wasn’t about politics—it was about strengthening the government’s ability to protect Americans [more than 300 of whom are shot every single day] from guns. By shuttering it, Trump is putting the interests of the gun lobby above our kids, our communities, and our country,” Brady president Kris Brown’s statement reads.

The office’s critics noted that it was staffed by longtime gun control activists and headed by Vice President Kamala Harris, who supports banning certain semiautomatic rifles and other gun control measures. They questioned the legitimacy of a government office they said was meant to block a constitutional right.

“That office should have never existed, and President Trump is again proving his commitment to our Second Amendment rights,” Mark Oliva, Director of Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, told The Epoch Times.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms echoed the sentiments in a Jan. 22 press release.

Committee Chairman Alan Gottlieb alleged the office was an attempt by Biden to bypass Congress and advance his gun-control agenda.

“Biden was trying to advance his gun control schemes with what amounted to a shadow government office because Congress rejected his extremist agenda of gun bans, gun registration, and other Second Amendment infringements,” Gottlieb stated in the press release.

When the office opened, Kristine Lucius, deputy assistant to the president and domestic policy adviser to the vice president, said its mission was to “prevent gun violence and save lives.”

Stefanie Feldman was the director of the office in addition to being a White House assistant to the president and staff secretary.

Greg Jackson, who led the Community Action Fund, which the White House described as “a national, survivor-led gun violence prevention organization focused exclusively on the impact on black and brown communities,” was one of two deputy directors.

Rob Wilcox, a senior director of federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety who also worked for Brady and served on the board of directors of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, was the second deputy director.

Authored by Mark Whitney,

The future of humanity is being decided as we speak. And it is not being decided on a battlefield in Eastern Europe, or the Middle East or the Taiwan Strait, but in the data centers and research facilities where technology experts create “the physical and virtual infrastructure to power the next generation of Artificial Intelligence.” 

This is a full-blown, scorched-earth free-for-all that has already racked up a number of casualties though you wouldn’t know it from reading the headlines which typically ignore recent ‘cataclysmic’ developments. But when President Trump announced the launching of a $500 billion AI infrastructure project (Stargate) on Tuesday just hours after China had released its DeepSeek R1—which “outperforms its rivals in advanced coding, math, and general knowledge capabilities”—it became painfully obvious that the battle for the future ‘is on’ in a big way. And this is not a battle that either side can afford to lose. Here’s how technology expert Adam Button summed it up:

Imagine we’re back in 2017 and the iPhone X was just released. It was selling $999 and Apple was crushing sales and building a wide moat around its ecosystem.

Now imagine, just days later, another company introduced a phone and platform that was equal in every way if not better and the price was just $30.

That’s what unfolded in the AI space today. China’s DeepSeek released an opensource model that works on par with OpenAI’s latest models but costs a tiny fraction to operate. Moreover, you can even download it and run it free (or the cost of your electricity) for yourself.

The product is a huge leap in terms of scaling and efficiency and may upend expectations of how much power and compute will be needed to manage the AI revolution. It also comes just hours before Trump is expected to unveil a $100 billion investment in US datacenters. The model shows there are different ways to train foundational AI models that offer up the same results with much less cost. It also opens up far more applications for AI that would have been too expensive to run previously, which should broaden the applications in the real economy. 

– China’s DeepSeek may have just upended the economics of AI, forex live

Imagine the panic that is spreading across western tech capitals right now. AI was supposed to be the fast-track to absolute societal control and oligarchic rule into the next millennia, but now those pesky Chinese have overturned the applecart leaving western elites with a problem they might not be able to fix. (See—Unchecked AI will lead us to a police state, edri ) They expected that their microchip sanctions would sabotage China’s AI efforts for at least a decade-or-so but, instead, China has come roaring back with a system that has left the tech giants gasping for air.

DeepSeek seems to have created a panic moment within the biggest companies and it should alarm investors.

Costs:
•2,048 Nvidia H800 GPUs: $40-50million
•Training: $5million

If all it takes to beat OpenAI is a maximum of $55million, the industry is becoming commoditized way… pic.twitter.com/lonELr5JyN

— THE SHORT BEAR (@TheShortBear) January 24, 2025

Of course, China’s eye-popping strides in technological development are nothing new as editor Ron Unz pointed out in a recent article where he noted that “between 2003 and 2007, the US led in 60 of the 64 technologies.” Whereas, as of 2022, “China led in 52 of the 64 technologies.” That’s not a competition; that’s a beat-down in a parking lot. Here’s Unz:

China now leads the world in many of the most important future technologies. The success of its commercial companies in telecommunications (Huawei, Zongxin), EV (BYD, Geely, Great Wall, etc.), battery (CATL, BYD) and Photovoltaics (Tongwei Solar, JA, Aiko, etc.) are directly built on such R&D prowess.

Similarly, the Chinese military’s modernization is built on the massive technological development of the country’s scientific community and its industrial base…. With its lead in science and technology research, China is positioned to outcompete the US in both economic and military arenas in the coming years…. American Pravda: China vs. America, Ron Unz, Unz Review

None of this should come as a surprise, although the timing of DeepSeek’s release (preempting Trump’s Stargate announcement) shows that the Chinese don’t mind throwing a wrench in Washington’s global strategy if it serves their regional interests, which it undoubtedly does. Here’s a bit more background from an article by Benj Edwards at Ars Technica:

On Monday, Chinese AI lab DeepSeek released its new R1 model family under an open MIT license, with its largest version containing 671 billion parameters. The company claims the model performs at levels comparable to OpenAI’s o1 simulated reasoning (SR) model on several math and coding benchmarks….

The releases immediately caught the attention of the AI community because most existing open-weights models—have lagged behind proprietary models like OpenAI’s o1 in so-called reasoning benchmarks. …

The R1 model works differently from typical large language models ….They attempt to simulate a human-like chain of thought as the model works through a solution to the query. This class of what one might call “simulated reasoning” models, or SR models for short, emerged when OpenAI debuted its o1 model family in September 2024. …

DeepSeek reports that R1 outperformed OpenAI’s o1 on several benchmarks and tests, including AIME (a mathematical reasoning test), MATH-500 (a collection of word problems), and SWE-bench Verified (a programming assessment tool)….

TechCrunch reports that three Chinese labs—DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI’s Kimi—have now released models they say match OpenAI’s o1’s capabilities, with DeepSeek first previewing R1 in November. Cutting-edge Chinese “reasoning” model rivals OpenAI o1—and it’s free to download, ars technica

This is a very big deal. The United States intends to dominate the world in this critical technology and yet the upstart Chinese have not only produced a system that is every bit as good as America’s best, but have made it more affordable, more accessible and more transparent. What’s not to like?

WEF Vows Millions of ‘Useless’ Human Workers Will Be Replaced with AI by 2030 – Slay News https://t.co/JDEPE0EIQ8

— Wtfisup (@Wtfisup49061475) January 19, 2025

(Note—OpenAI is an American artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory. It is made up of the non-profit OpenAI Incorporated and its for-profit subsidiary corporation OpenAI Limited Partnership. OpenAI has emerged to be one of the primary leaders of the generative AI era. OpenAI is a privately held company that has open sourced some of its technology, but it has not open sourced most of its technology…. In contrast, DeepSeek AI R1 is open source which means its code is publicly accessible—anyone can see, modify, and distribute the code as they see fit. Open source software is developed in a decentralized and collaborative way, relying on peer review and community production.)

Is DeepSeek the biggest threat to US equity markets? The company seems to have built a groundbreaking AI model at an extremely low price and without having access to cutting-edge chips, calling into question the utility of the hundreds of billions worth of capex being poured…

— Vital Knowledge Media (@knowledge_vital) January 24, 2025

Here’s more from political analyst Arnaud Bertrand in a post on X:

Most people probably don’t realize how bad the news (about) China’s Deepseek is for OpenAI. They’ve come up with a model that matches and even exceeds OpenAI’s latest model o1 on various benchmarks, and they’re charging just 3% of the price. It’s essentially as if someone had released a mobile on par with the iPhone but was selling it for $30 instead of $1000. It’s this dramatic.

What’s more, they’re releasing it open-source so you even have the option – which OpenAI doesn’t offer – of not using their API at all and running the model for “free” yourself.

If you’re an OpenAI customer today you’re obviously going to start asking yourself some questions, like “wait, why exactly should I be paying 30X more?”. This is pretty transformational stuff, it fundamentally challenges the economics of the market….

So basically, it looks like the game has changed. All thanks to a Chinese company that just demonstrated how U.S. tech restrictions can backfire spectacularly – by forcing them to build more efficient solutions that they’re now sharing with the world at 3% of OpenAI’s prices. As the saying goes, sometimes pressure creates diamonds. @RnaudBertrand

Get the picture?

Everything the US has done to stymie China’s development—including economic sanctions, chips embargoes, military provocations, political meddling, even arresting a Huawei executive (truly pathetic)—has blown up in their faces.

China’s well-educated, highly motivated, technologically adept workforce have produced a model of AI that equals or exceeds the best the West has to offer at a fraction of the cost and with open sourcing that allows users to
modify, and distribute the code as they see fit.

So, which version of AI sounds like a genuine benefit to humankind and which sounds like another scheme for transforming the world into a dystopian police-state controlled by aspiring tyrants and psychopathic control freaks? Here’s more from Bertrand on ‘why China is making AI available so cheap:

….it speaks to a different philosophy/vision on AI: ironically named “OpenAI” is basically about trying to establish a monopoly by establishing a moat with massive amounts of GPU and money. Deepseek is clearly betting on a future where AI becomes a commodity, widely available and affordable to everyone. By pricing so aggressively and releasing their code open-source, they’re not just competing with OpenAI but basically declaring that AI should be like electricity or internet connectivity – a basic utility that powers innovation rather than a premium service controlled by a few players. And in that world, it’s a heck of a lot better to be the first mover who helped make it happen than the legacy player who tried to stop it. @RnaudBertrand

So, it’s basically like everything else in this sick, twisted world where a handful of money-grubbing miscreants muscle their way into a new technology so they can fatten their own bank accounts while planting their bootheel firmly on the neck of humanity. It seems to me that China’s approach is vastly superior in that it’s clearly aimed at providing the benefits of AI to the greatest number of people at the lowest possible cost. Here are a few random comments on China’s DeepSeek AI that I picked off X that show how excited people are about this groundbreaking version:

The ramifications of this are huge. Every day China does something incredible, totally unlike the stagnation of the EU, talking all day while accomplishing nothing, or the latest evil plan oozing out of DC. This is just brilliant. & inspiring. & it WILL earn them more goodwill @CaptainCrusty66

It’s the china recipe book for success for every industry where western oligopolies have dominated. @bbooker450

AI will become a part of everyday infrastructure like electricity and tap water. DeepSeek is a signficant step towards that, thanks to its cost reduction and open source nature @MrBig2024

We are living in a timeline where a non-US company is keeping the original mission of OpenAI alive – truly open, frontier research that empowers all…. @DrJimFan

This is cool…this isn’t just another open source LLM release. this is o1-level reasoning capabilities that you can run locally, that you can modify and that you can study…
that’s a very different world than the one we were in yesterday. Al, comments line

Price comparison of OpenAI o1 and DeepSeek AI R1: R1 is significantly cheaper across all categories (96–98% savings). Now you know why big organizations don’t want open-source to continue, If humanity is ever going to benefit from AI, it will be from open-source . @ai_for_success

China is overturning mainstream development theory in astonishing ways. China’s GDP per capita is only $12,000. That’s 70% less than the average in high-income countries. And yet they have the largest high-speed rail network in the world. They’ve developed their own commercial aircraft. They are the world leaders in renewable energy technology and electric vehicles. They have advanced medical technology, smartphone technology, microchip production, aerospace engineering… China has a higher life expectancy than the USA, with 80% less income. We were told that this kind of development required very high levels of GDP/cap. But over the past 10 years China has demonstrated that it can be achieved with much more modest levels of output. How do they do it? By using public finance and industrial policy to steer investment and production toward social objectives and national development needs. This allows them to convert aggregate production into development outcomes much more efficiently than other countries, where productive capacity is often wasted on activities that may be highly profitable to capital, or beneficial to the rich, but may not actually advance development. Of course, China still has development gaps that need to be addressed. And we know from some other countries that higher social indicators can be achieved with China’s level of GDP/cap, by focusing more on social policy. But the achievements are undeniable, and development economists are taking stock. @jasonhickel

Unfortunately, the intensity of the competition between the US and China, ignores the inherent risks of Artificial Intelligence and its looming threat to human survival. In a recent analytical piece by the Rand Corporation titled AI and Geopolitics: How Might AI Affect the Rise and Fall of Nations?, the authors provide a disturbing window into a future in which “AI-enabled machines—of equivalent or greater intelligence and, potentially, highly disruptive capabilities” could pose a threat to our own existence. Keep in mind, the line between our historic reality and science fiction has already been crossed just as the probability that our own creation, AI, is likely “to become an actor, not just a factor” in the existential challenges faced by our species. Here’s a short blurb from this truly unsettling article:

Although technology has often influenced geopolitics, the prospect of AI means that the technology itself could become a geopolitical actor. AI could have motives and objectives that differ considerably from those of governments and private companies. Humans’ inability to comprehend how AI “thinks” and our limited understanding of the second- and third-order effects of our commands or requests of AI are also very troubling. Humans have enough trouble interacting with one another. It remains to be seen how we will manage our relationships with one or more AIs….

We are entering an era of both enlightenment and chaos…

The borderless nature of AI makes it hard to control or regulate. As computing power expands, models are optimized, and open-source frameworks mature, the ability to create highly impactful AI applications will become increasingly diffuse. In such a world, well-intentioned researchers and engineers will use this power to do wonderful things, ill-intentioned individuals will use it to do terrible things, and AIs could do both wonderful and terrible things. The net result is neither an unblemished era of enlightenment nor an unmitigated disaster, but a mix of both. Humanity will learn to muddle through and live with this game-changing technology, just as we have with so many other transformative technologies in the past….

The potential dangers posed by AI are many. At the extreme, they include the threat of human extinction, which could come about by an AI-enabled catastrophe, such as a well-designed virus that spreads easily, evades detection, and destroys our civilization. Less dire, but considerably worrisome, is the threat to democratic governance if AIs gain power over people….

AI cannot be contained through regulation, so the best policy will aim to minimize the harm that AI might do. This will probably be most critical in biosecurity,[3] but harm reduction also includes countering cybersecurity threats, strengthening democratic resilience, and developing emergency response options for a wide variety of threats from state and sub- and non-state actors…..

In light of the likely very widespread proliferation of advanced AI capabilities to private- and public-sector actors and well-resourced individuals, governments should work closely with leading private-sector entities to develop advanced forecasting tools, wargames, and strategic plans for dealing with what experts anticipate will be a wide variety of unexpected AI-enabled catastrophic events. AI and Geopolitics: How Might AI Affect the Rise and Fall of Nations?, RAND

In other words, humanity should encourage their business and political leaders to exercise sound judgement and prepare for unexpected disasters that could terminate the species.

That is simply not sufficient defense for the challenge we face.

The ceasefire announced in January 2025 by Israel and Hamas was celebrated by both sides after months of mediation by the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt. However, lasting peace depends on a series of demands both parties agreed to.

Beyond the Gaza conflict, the Middle East continues to grapple with civil wars and political instability in countries such as Syria and Iraq.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, presents the results of a survey conducted by Ipsos, which asked people in different countries if they believe the conflicts in the Middle East will end in 2025.

Methodology: Ipsos surveyed 33 countries between Friday, October 25, and Friday, November 8, 2024. The survey included 23,721 adults aged 18 and older.

Most Are Pessimistic About the Middle East

The majority of respondents and countries chose “Unlikely”, meaning that they do not believe conflicts will end in 2025.

People in the Netherlands and Sweden are the most pessimistic about the resolution of conflicts in the region.

Meanwhile, China and India have the highest share of respondents who believe the conflicts could end this year.

In the United States, 52% said it is unlikely, while 26% believe in peace for the region, and 22% remain unsure.

If you enjoyed this topic, check out this graphic that presents the results of another survey conducted by Ipsos, which asked people in different countries whether they believe the conflict in Ukraine will end in 2025.

Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,

Neither New York nor California understands that companies won’t sell products for a loss…

Hoot of the Day

My hoot of the day is AT&T Is Stopping Its 5G Internet Air Service in NY Because of New Broadband Law

A new broadband law is going into effect this week in New York state requiring internet provider to offer low-income residents access to monthly broadband rates of $15 for 25Mbps or $20 for 200Mbps. As a response, AT&T has decided that it no longer plans to offer its 5G home internet in the Empire State and will begin notifying users about the decision on Wednesday. 

“While we are committed to providing reliable and affordable internet service to customers across the country, New York’s broadband law imposes harmful rate regulations that make it uneconomical for AT&T to invest in and expand our broadband infrastructure in the state,” the company said in a statement provided to CNET. 

“As a result, effective Jan. 15, 2025, we will no longer be able to offer AT&T Internet Air, our fixed-wireless internet service, to New York customers.”

New York first passed its broadband law back in 2021, with an appeals court allowing it to move forward last April after legal challenges looked to thwart it. The US Supreme Court decided in December that it wouldn’t hear challenges to the new law.

Lessons from California and New York

In New York, 5G service is now so affordable that you can’t get service at all.

That’s a minor nuisance compared to California, where policy mandates by Governor Newsom led to cancelled policies.

CBS News reports Thousands of Los Angeles homeowners were dropped by their insurers before the Palisades Fire

About 1,600 policies in Pacific Palisades were dropped by State Farm in July, California Department of Insurance spokesman Michael Soller said in an Thursday email to CBS MoneyWatch. An analysis of insurance data by CBS News San Francisco last year found that State Farm also dropped more than 2,000 policies in two other Los Angeles ZIP codes, which include the Brentwood, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Monte Nido neighborhoods.

State Farm’s decision reflects a trend of private insurers, including Allstate and Farmers Insurance, of dropping California policies or halting underwriting, leaving homeowners with the choice of getting coverage through the insurer of last resort, the California Fair Access to Insurance Requirements Plan, or FAIR Plan, or forgo insurance altogether. The FAIR Plan provides basic fire insurance coverage for properties in high-risk areas when traditional insurance companies will not.

Seems to me that State Farm, Allstate, and Farmers did their homework.

California would not let State Farm price for risk, so the companies decided not to renew policies.

Not content with already disastrous stupidity, a new regulation mandates Business
Insurance Companies in California Must Offer Coverage in Wildfire-Prone Areas.

Insurance companies will be legally required to write policies in those areas “equivalent to no less than 85% of their statewide market share.” Coverage won’t increase to that threshold immediately. Instead, companies will be given a requirement of a 5% increase every two years.

Every insurer in California should leave the state unless they can price according to risk.

Even if the insurers stay, understand they will have to overprice elsewhere if they underprice fire prone areas.

Organized crime groups have surged in recent decades, aided by the rise of synthetic drugs, encrypted technologies, and multinational operations.

For instance, a leading Brazilian mob has 60,000 affiliates spread across 26 countries in addition to its 40,000 members. Moreover, criminal actors are increasingly diversifying their operations, engaging in activities such as human smuggling, drug trafficking, and the exploitation of food supply chains.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, shows organized crime hot spots around the world, based on data from the Global Organized Crime Index.

Methodology

The Global Organized Crime Index analyzes 193 countries based on their scale of criminal activity. It includes three main components:

• Criminal actor influence and structure: e.g. mafia-style groups, criminal networks, state-embedded actors

• Criminal market scale and impact: e.g. arms trafficking, heroin trade, human trafficking

• Each country’s resilience to organized crime: e.g. judicial system, government transparency

Overall, countries were scored on a scale of 0 to 10 by the extent to which organized crime groups exert control over their direct economic activities.

Where Organized Crime Groups Are the Most Powerful

Below, we show the top 30 hubs for organized crime groups worldwide:

Central and South America have the highest concentration of organized crime globally, with the most widespread criminal activity in Venezuela and Colombia.

In particular, criminal actors are known for serious extortion practices, human smuggling, and illegal arms trafficking. The economic crisis in Venezuela, which has forced millions to flee, has contributed to the rise in human smuggling and trafficking, with victims being targeted even beyond the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

In Mexico, criminal actors are increasingly targeting the food industry, including avocados, tortillas, potatoes, and limes, among others.

Myanmar also stands as a key hub for human trafficking, with an estimated 120,000 victims being used for forced labor in scam centers. These scam centers, which generate billions of dollars, operate largely along border of China and Myanmar, where victims are lured by significant perks.

Meanwhile, the illicit arms trade in pervasive across Somalia. The jihadist group, al-Shabab, has infiltrated political and economic structures, serving as a key player in illegal arms trafficking. Each year, the group is estimated to make $100 million from its extortion activities alone.

To learn more about this topic from a homicide perspective, check out this graphic on the world’s highest homicide rates by region.

Authored by J.R.Macleod via The Mises Institute,

During his 2024 presidential campaign Donald Trump repeatedly and in grave terms highlighted the possibility of the US dollar losing its world reserve currency status. This occurred at summits with business leaders at the New York and Chicago Economic Clubs.

Trump occupies a rather unique position in this debate since he recognizes the real possibility of the dollar losing its world currency status, he opposes this change and wishes to prevent it, and yet he is not a paradigmatic member of the ruling class. However mainstream he is—today or in the past—he doesn’t possess the establishment credentials of a Ben Bernanke, for instance.

Since Trump doesn’t want the dollar to lose reserve currency status, his acknowledgment that this is a real possibility should at least serve as ammunition against those who are oblivious to this change, or who claim that it isn’t happening. Typically, when dollar defenders argue that the loss of reserve currency status is an impossibility, they are arguing against those who wish for this change to happen. When Trump says that the dollar could lose its reserve status—even though he opposes this change—it at least undercuts the factual basis of those dollar defenders who claim its status is secure.

Admittedly, the possible loss of reserve currency status is not a short-term trend. Anyone claiming the demise of the dollar is imminent—and particularly anyone trying to sell you a financial package on this basis—should be treated with skepticism. But there is a bizarre school of thought which downplays all blows to the dollar’s position, and claims that these events are insignificant. There are, in fact, many significant events occurring, and they are stacking up to present a real threat to the dollar’s position. Events such as Saudi Arabia trading oil in other currencies, BRICs countries developing a new payment system, and China rapidly decreasing its holdings of US treasuries. How can these events not mean anything?

Source

If the dollar is in jeopardy, and Trump wants to save it, the question then becomes: can he save it? One approach to achieving this goal would be to manage the dollar more competently. This would involve less creation of new money (inflation), since many national economies were severely destabilized by the massive inflation of recent years. It would also involve a judicious, non-ideological use of dollar-based power, as opposed to weaponizing the dollar over conflicts where a nation perceives its fundamental interests are at stake, and the US interest is peripheral at best, and unjustified at worst. The other approach would be to get tough; to threaten countries who move away from holding the dollar for forex purposes with either economic or military power.

Trump has made noise about both approaches, though he seems to lean most heavily towards the use of tariffs to prevent nations from breaking away. In my view, the aggressive approach would only accelerate current trends, since this was the path taken from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 up until now, and it created the situation in the first place. A Trump administration managing the dollar the way it used to be managed could placate other nations and slow down current trends, but I think that is all it could do, rather than permanently halt and reverse these developments. A fundamental rupture has occurred and too many important nations perceive it as a fundamental interest to break the power of the dollar as the world reserve currency in the long term. They may be happier if this process is managed slowly and without disruption, but they are committed to it.

In my view, it is impossible for Trump to stop the process of de-dollarization. Regardless of how much success he is able to achieve, we should also ask whether this is the right goal in the first place. Undoubtedly the dollar losing global reserve currency status would cause significant short-term economic pain for the American people. Trump seems to have the noble intention of avoiding this pain, but we also know that markets can respond to these events and get the economy working again rather quickly when left alone. Beyond markets, there is also the calculation, by which the government could adjust the ratio of its gold holdings to the dollar (assuming implementation of a hard gold standard). This is explained by Murray Rothbard in the final chapter of The Case Against the Fed. In the event that the dollar loses its reserve status, this plan could very quickly restore the currency to a sound position.

It may seem noble to attempt to reinforce the reserve status of the dollar, but defending the Fed, the fiat dollar, and global reserve currency status are the economic equivalent of defending death by strangulation just because it’s slow. This currency system supports the bloated welfare-warfare functions of the government. It has hollowed out American industry by financialization and the fact that dollars can be created out of thin air to pay for goods and services domestically and abroad. This tremendously undercuts genuine production and wealth generation.

Because this system creates such an unnatural and unproductive economy, and though this economy has such pernicious effects on society, collapse is inherent in the system sooner or later. The longer the system lasts, the more rot sets in, and the worse the eventual collapse will be.

This discussion brings us to the subject of institutionalism. There is a powerful tendency in politics to regard an institution as one’s own, long after one’s own faction has lost it, or even where the institution never belonged to one’s own faction in the first place. Accompanying this is the tendency to want to reform institutions recognized as not aligned with one’s own faction, rather than destroy them.

Being unable to recognize when an institution is opposed to one’s political goals, and being unable to recognize when an opposing institution is irredeemably opposed to these goals and, therefore, not subject to reform, can prevent a faction from achieving its desired political goals. In these cases, all energy—by the fact of being directed into these institutions—is then redirected against the goals the political faction wishes to achieve.

According to Trump’s stated goals of wishing to revitalize the American economy on behalf of the American people—and not government or corporate special interests—the Federal Reserve and the fiat dollar it supports are irredeemable institutions. Trying to reform and reinforce the status of the dollar as global reserve currency will never achieve these goals. People may be able to point to this or that improvement in economic conditions over the next few years, but I am talking about systemic change and a lasting victory. It is hard to argue that these aren’t necessary over and above small improvements.

Between the Biden administration inadvertently and obliviously endangering the global reserve currency status of the dollar through its own incompetence, and Trump’s intention to undo this damage, there is a better path. Any future American administration should create a plan to manage the transition away from the fiat dollar as global reserve currency towards a national gold dollar, that is, a national policy of a 100 percent gold-backed dollar, where other countries are free to set their own monetary policy. This would vastly improve the American economy as well as international relations.

Arabica coffee futures surged to record highs on Friday, fueled by the ongoing global supply crunch. The most-active contract climbed nearly 2% in late morning trading, reaching the highest price levels on record dating back to 1972. The multi-year parabolic move in coffee prices only suggests higher Starbucks and/or supermarket market prices in the months ahead if hedges fail to offset bean inflation. 

The big price jump has traders reducing their exposure to the futures market due to elevated costs, making the market more prone to volatility.

Bloomberg data shows aggregate open interest — or the number of outstanding contracts — has declined in the past five years while prices moved higher. 

Bloomberg’s Dayanne Sousa and Mumbi Gitau provided readers with bean supply concerns coming out of top grower Brazil: 

After record shipments in 2024, Brazil should see a slowdown ahead “mainly due to the next arabica crop likely being smaller,” analysts at Itau BBA bank wrote in a report.

That’s a concern in a period when global stockpiles remain tight. The fact that previously strong exports from Brazil weren’t enough to replenish world inventories “shows that demand has not yet allowed there to be an excess of coffee on the market,” said broker Thiago Cazarini, president of Cazarini Trading Co.

Another reminder of the tightness in global supplies was this week’s decline in bean stockpiles held at exchange- monitored warehouses. That could indicate “robust spot demand in Europe,” said Tomas Araujo, a trading associate at StoneX.

In a separate note, Bloomberg’s Ilena Peng and Mumbi Gitau said:

Prices have been boosted by concerns about the output in top producer Brazil, where a drought reduced the potential production for the upcoming season. The decline in certified arabica stockpiles held at exchange-monitored warehouses this week is another reminder of continuing supply concerns. The surge is causing nervousness among coffee buyers already faced with tight global inventories and supply chain constraints, said Tomas Araujo, a trading associate at StoneX

The bean surge should not only make commercial coffee buyers nervous but also leave consumers uneasy, as there are no indications that global food inflation will ease in the first quarter of 2025.  

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he is considering withholding federal aid to California following a series of devastating wildfires if the state doesn’t change its water policies.

In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity, he reasserted that the state’s fish conservation efforts in Northern California are linked to problems with water availability amid the wildfires that erupted earlier this month. He also placed part of the blame on Gov. Gavin Newsom for not being able to quickly tame the fires.

“I don’t think we should give California anything until they let water flow down,” he said.

In the interview, Trump also confirmed that he will visit Los Angeles on Friday after visiting North Carolina, which was devastated by Hurricane Helene last fall. However, the president said he doesn’t know if he will meet with Newsom.

“Look, Gavin’s got one thing he can do: He can release the water that comes from the north. There is massive amounts of water, rainwater, and mountain water that comes due with the snow, comes down … as it melts. There’s so much water,” Trump said, referring to Newsom, a Democrat.

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to “route more water” from Northern California’s Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to other parts of the Golden State due to the wildfires in what he said was an attempt to end “radical environmentalism” that was essentially putting fish over people.

“The recent deadly and historically destructive wildfires in Southern California underscore why the State of California needs a reliable water supply and sound vegetation management practices in order to provide water desperately needed there, and why this plan must immediately be reimplemented,” the White House said.

At a news conference a day earlier, Trump said that “Los Angeles has massive amounts of water available to it.”

“All they have to do is turn the valve,” he said.

Earlier in January, Newsom wrote a letter to Trump asking him to survey the devastation caused by the Los Angeles fires firsthand and meet with first responders. In an interview with NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” the governor also disputed Trump’s assertion about the fish and water shortages in Los Angeles.

Trump, he said, is “somehow connecting the delta smelt to this fire, which is inexcusable because it’s inaccurate.”

“Also, incomprehensible to anyone that understands water policy in the state,” Newsom said.

On Jan. 10, then-President Joe Biden said at an event that local utility companies intentionally shut off the power in Los Angeles, which led to water shortages during the fires.

“What I know from talking to the governor, that there are concerns out there that there’s also been a water shortage,“ Biden said in a briefing. ”The fact is the utilities, understandably, shut off power because they are worried the lines that carried energy were going to be blown down and spark additional fires.

“When it did that, it cut off the ability to generate pumping the water. That’s what caused the lack of water in these hydrants.”

During the Hannity interview, Trump signaled that significant changes could be coming to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) because he would rather see individual states deal with their respective natural disaster responses.

The president also said he believes FEMA, which is handling some wildfire recovery efforts, has performed poorly over the “last four years.”