Update (1900ET): Well it may not have been officially Day One but Trump kept his promise and just pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht after he spent 11 years in jail.

In a statement on Truth Social, President Trump said:

“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son, Ross.

The scum that worked to convict him were some of the same lunatics who were involved in the modern day weaponization of government against me.

He was given two life sentences, plus 40 years. Ridiculous!“

Promise made. Promise kept…

Ross was just granted a FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL PARDON by @realDonaldTrump. Words cannot express how grateful we are.

President Trump is a man of his word and he just saved Ross’s life. ROSS IS A FREE MAN!!!!!

— Free_Ross (@Free_Ross) January 21, 2025

Here was Ross back in May when Trump made the promise…

Last night, Donald Trump pledged to commute my sentence on day 1, if reelected. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

After 11 years in prison, it is hard to express how I feel at this moment. It is thanks to your undying support that I may get a second chance.

— Ross Ulbricht (@RealRossU) May 26, 2024

*  *  *

“Ross will be freed too.”

Those five words, posted by Elon Musk to his X account, sent the odds of a pardon for Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht soaring to near certainty.

According to a contract on Polymarket, the odds of a Ulbricht pardon are now above 90%…

A petition calling for clemency for Ulbricht on freeross.org has gathered over 600,000 signatures since his incarceration.

The petition has garnered support from those who argue his life sentence is excessive and unjust, and from some bitcoiners that uphold Silk Road’s libertarian ideals.

As CoinDesk’s Sam Reynolds reports, Trump first promised to pardon Ulbricht during a campaign stop at the Libertarian National Convention last May.

“If you vote for me, on Day 1, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served,” Trump said during a speech last year.

“He’s already served 11 years, we’re gonna get him home.”

“On day one, I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht.”

— Trump pic.twitter.com/k9WV5i7lf5

— Alan ₿ Watts ⚡️ (@alanbwt) January 21, 2025

Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in 2015 for his role in the operation of the Silk Road marketplace, which pioneered the use of the dark web.

Supporters of Ulbricht say that his sentence was disproportionately long for the crime.

Elsewhere on the Polymarket pardon list is Roger Ver, an early bitcoin investor and bitcoin cash (BCH) advocate, who was indicted for tax fraud last April, and the market is giving a 32% chance of a pardon taking place in the first 100 days.

Despite crypto playing a prominent part of Trump’s campaign, Polymarket bettors are only giving a 43% of a crypto executive order, regarding the use, trading, or legal status of digital assets, happening in the first week.

In a development once deemed unimaginable, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed on Tuesday that finance ministers attending the 2025 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, are showing increasing interest in establishing their own Strategic Bitcoin Reserves. According to Armstrong, this growing momentum appears to be inspired by the United States’ consideration of a similar initiative.

Coinbase CEO @brian_armstrong reveals finance ministers at Davos 2025 have expressed growing interest in establishing their own Strategic Bitcoin Reserves, inspired by the U.S. considering the move. pic.twitter.com/yXxM8Z11Hn

— CAPITAL (@capitalnewshq) January 21, 2025

ANDREW SORKIN: Take us inside the room. What was the feeling? We watched the crypto ball and everything also. There seems to be a full-on sea change in Washington about your world.

BRIAN ARMSTRONG:  It’s the dawn of the new day for crypto. The energy was palpable throughout the room. You have to remember the last four years we felt we were being attacked by the administration and they tried to weaponize the lack of clarity and the rules and push back on the good actors. There were bad actors, to be fair, but they were going after the good actors. We are ready for new rules.

ANDREW SORKIN: Did you expect an executive order yesterday? To the extent of Bitcoin prices is a signal of something.

BRIAN ARMSTRONG: It’s been one day. I’m not too worried.

ANDREW SORKIN: What is the executive order you are looking for?

BRIAN ARMSTRONG: Directing the agency of the U.S. government to collaborate and look to clear rules passed. That would allow capital to flow into the United States and startups to be built there. Rearticulating the bill of rights with the self-custodial wallets. That was a big issue in the past four years as well. Operation Chokepoint 2.0. Those were some of the things that can be done with executive orders, it will really take congress.

ANDREW SORKIN: Can I ask about the choke point 2.0? The question is do you believe people were being quote/unquote debanked because they owned crypto at all or debanked because they were seen at those banks as a risk of some sort to the bank?

BRIAN ARMSTRONG: I think what happened is that the regulators likely cajoled by people like Elizabeth Warren applied a soft pressure to the banks and said we have concerns about crypto. Vague statements. Risk-based statements. If you are a bank CEO, that is hard to do if the regulator comes in and says we’re uncomfortable with this. You say is it illegal? No, we’re uncomfortable. That soft pressure was unlawful in my view was happening.

ANDREW SORKIN: This became a commotion in the last 48 hours about crypto. What is your feeling about the Trump family involvement in crypto and President Trump put out a meme coin that was at some point worth tens of billions of dollars. Melania doing the same. There are some people inside crypto who are very critical of those decisions because they look like an enrichment of the president.

BRIAN ARMSTRONG: Look, I think anybody should be able to create a collectible or piece of artwork. There are lots of crypto commodities and hopefully securities in the future. These meme coins are something anybody should put out there. We don’t recommend one asset. We look at the standards and let the market decide.

ANDREW SORKIN: The concept of a memecoin. Is that good or bad for crypto? If enough people participate and lose, because more people lose than win, and the fact that the president of the United States and his family involved in the project, does that concern you?

BRIAN ARMSTRONG: A lot of technology looks like a toy. Think about the early internet and people were putting animated gifs and things with cats. It turned out to be much more important than that. You have to be cautious. With meme coins, it is not something I’m trading all the time. I’m not particularly interested in it. It could evolve into something powerful. You have to keep an open mind. I think everybody should have the right.

REBECCA QUICK: The disappointment that’s being read into the price of crypto today. It’s not down all that much. People are saying there’s disappointment because he didn’t enact on day one. If you look at crypto’s price since his election, bitcoin’s price since his election, it’s up almost 50%. I wonder how much of the positive news is baked into what you are seeing in the price of bitcoin? What you are seeing from here in terms of bitcoin’s growth or volatility that could come with that? A lot of the positive news is already recognized from the moment he was elected?

BRIAN ARMSTRONG: We have seen an incredible growth and it hit an all-time high yesterday. We feel very good about that. I think over time, bitcoin will get in the millions price range. It is adopted by more and more customers. ETF with the inflow. If we get clear legislation in the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. If the U.S. started, the rest of the G20 would follow. I discussed with leaders from different countries around the world, they are getting more interested in it because the U.S. is looking into it.

Authored by Peter Berkowitz via RealClearPolitics,

Today, in defiance of mighty odds, Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, took the oath of office to become the nation’s 47th president.

Illiberalism of the left proved a major factor in Trump’s close but clear victory over Vice President Kamala Harris and in progressive elites’ far-fetched rationalizations of Harris’ defeat.

Some Harris supporters, especially among the D.C. professional class, attribute Harris’ loss to Trump voters’ gullibility or malice. They say that America is thriving, crime is down, employment is low, and Biden passed major legislation to combat inflation and enhance America’s ability to compete with China. Therefore, only a public that fell for right-wing misinformation or backs Trump’s authoritarian dispositions could have elected him president. Among other things, this assessment overlooks that inflation, which surged during Biden’s presidency, battered working-class voters who form the core of Trump’s support, and that declining inflation does not mean that prices have returned to pre-inflation levels. It also underestimates the impact of lawless borders on middle-class and working-class voters. It avoids consideration of the consequences of mainstream-media gaslighting of Americans about Biden’s declining cognitive capabilities. And it ignores the electoral significance of Harris’ inability to distinguish herself from the Biden administration – known early on as the Biden-Harris administration – and to separate herself from the hard-left positions she took in 2019 in pursuit of her party’s presidential nomination and as a senator from, and attorney general of, California.

Other Harris supporters blame her loss on racism and sexism. They maintain that the American people’s bigotry foiled the election of an African-American woman to the highest office in the land. Well-known facts undercut this accusation. In 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama defeated John McCain – a center-right, white war hero – to become the first black person elected president of the United States. Following his January 2009 inauguration, President Obama enjoyed sky-high approval ratings that cut across party lines. Obama coasted to reelection in 2012 against Mitt Romney – a center-right, white, former businessman and former Massachusetts governor. And former President Obama and his African-American wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, remain popular. Moreover, though losing to Trump in 2016 in the Electoral College, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, demonstrating that a majority of Americans can prefer a woman in the White House.

In early January in the New York Times, James Carville took a crack at explaining Harris’ loss. He, too, offered an implausible, one-dimensional account.

In “James Carville: I Was Wrong About the 2024 Election. Here’s Why,” the veteran Democratic campaign advisor and longtime TV political commentator reasonably emphasized that “the most important thing for us now is to face that we were wrong and take action on the prevailing ‘why.’” But his “why” is a misleading cliché. A prominent figure in Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential bid, Carville faulted Democrats in 2024 for neglecting a crucial truth associated with victory 32 years before: “We lost for one very simple reason: It was, it is, and it always will be the economy, stupid.”

Carville greatly oversimplifies. The economy is a major factor in elections. Yet other matters, including citizens’ sense of personal security and overall well-being and candidates’ positions on culture and foreign affairs, not only shape political preferences but also influence voters’ interpretation of economic performance. For example, voters’ assessment of higher taxes and painful tariffs during wartime differ from their view of these burdens in peacetime.

While Trump “decisively won by seizing a swath of middle-class and low-income voters focused on the economy,” according to Carville, it was, he contends, the stories that Republicans told about the economy – and that Democrats did not tell – that determined the outcome. “Democrats have flat-out lost the economic narrative,” writes Carville. “The only path to electoral salvation is to take it back. Perception is everything in politics, and a lot of Americans perceive us as out to lunch on the economy – not feeling their pain or caring too much about other things instead.” Accordingly, Carville instructs Democrats to “focus on revving up a transformed messaging machine for the new political paradigm we now find ourselves living in.” To better manage people’s perceptions, Democrats must devise a simple message and execute a disciplined, back-to-basics campaign – “Repetitive. Memorable. And entirely focused on the issues that affect Americans’ everyday lives.”

Instead of directing ire toward Trump the man, Carville wants Democratic messaging to target the Trump administration’s likely economic measures: tax cuts for the wealthy, tariffs, and major cuts to health care benefits. These, Carville is confident, will hurt ordinary voters.

He also calls on Democrats to develop their own policies. Implicitly recognizing that Trump tapped into genuine discontents, Carville counsels his party to go “on the offensive with a wildly popular and populist economic agenda” that Republicans cannot but oppose. That agenda should include raising the minimum wage, portraying the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade as an economic issue, and dividing the GOP by supporting immigration reform that encourages high-skilled and well-educated workers to come to America. And, Carville stresses, Democrats must aggressively employ “the new media paradigm” – podcasts, social media, and prominent influencers – to sell their policies.

Musa al-Gharbi sees matters very differently and accounts for Harris’ defeat far more convincingly. In “A Graveyard of Bad Election Narratives,” he criticizes progressive scholars’ and journalists’ propensity to find the source of Trump’s victory in red-state voters’ moral and intellectual failings. An assistant professor of communication, journalism and, by courtesy, sociology at Stony Brook University, the young scholar – no fan of Trump’s – corrects the record through careful consideration of publicly available data.

Al-Gharbi concentrates on “what wasn’t the problem” (emphasis in original) for Democrats. It wasn’t racism: Trump did worse with white voters this cycle than in 2020 and 2016; Harris did better with white voters – especially white men – than did Biden in 2020 and Clinton in 2016; and Trump improved his numbers significantly among non-white voters. It wasn’t sexism: While Trump received a share of the male vote similar to that of Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes, he significantly increased his portion of the women’s vote. It wasn’t billionaires’ influence: Although Trump had Elon Musk and more than 50 other billionaires on his side, Harris had more than 80 billionaires on hers, raised much more money than Trump, and was preferred by the affluent. It wasn’t third parties: In the two states – Michigan and Wisconsin – where third parties received enough votes to make a difference, a majority of their votes had the third-party candidates not run probably would have gone to Trump. And the problem wasn’t voter turnout: Although down overall from 2020, most of the 2024 decrease came from sure-win states for one of the candidates while four swing states that together were decisive – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan – enjoyed record voter turnout.

What then was Harris’ problem in election 2024? It starts, according to al-Gharbi, with her deficiencies as a candidate. Harris entered the race extremely late (Biden’s fault) and failed to communicate a compelling agenda (her fault). In addition, maintains al-Gharbi, by courting Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney she alienated her base without attracting swing voters. She neglected Democrats’ “blue wall” Rust Belt states. Speaking on her behalf, Obama antagonized black voters by scolding them for insufficiently supporting a black woman. And Harris declined an invitation from “The Joe Rogan Experience,” a podcast that typically reaches an audience of 11 million and on occasion as many as 50 million.

The deeper reasons for Trump’s victory involve long-term trends also at work in other Western liberal democracies. The data indicate, argues al-Gharbi, that voters’ top three reasons for rejecting Harris were inflation, immigration, and progressive views on cultural issues. However, if it weren’t for inflation and immigration, argues al-Gharbi, Democrats in 2024 would have continued to shed votes among “non-whites, religious minorities, less affluent people” because of cultural issues’ persistent salience.

For several election cycles, highly educated, prestigiously credentialed elites have alienated middle-class and working-class voters and driven them to the Republican Party, observes al-Gharbi. Over the last 15 years or so, the “Great Awokening,” he argues, intensified progressive elites’ promulgation of hard-left cultural stances. They championed assaults on free speech – by universities, the prestige press, social media, government, and sometimes all in tandem. They promoted a transgender ideology that encouraged adolescents to change their sex through drug therapy and surgery, and that endorsed the participation in women’s athletic competitions of biological men who declared themselves women. And they avidly advanced Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that denounced merit as an artifact of white supremacy and sought to place in positions of power and prestige people of favored skin color, ethnicity, sex, and sexual orientation.

Progressives’ embrace of illiberal doctrines had the strange consequence of transforming Donald Trump into the preferred candidate for president of many who cherish free speech, respect sexual difference while insisting on equal rights, and wish people to be judged based on competence and character. This goes a long way toward explaining Trump’s odds-defying return to the White House.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. From 2019 to 2021, he served as director of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department. His writings are posted at PeterBerkowitz.com and he can be followed on X @BerkowitzPeter.

A gaming industry analyst penned a lengthy 200+ slide presentation about the state of the US video gaming industry for 2025. 

Epyllion CEO Matthew Ball pointed out how the gaming industry has tumbled into a slump, pressuring developers and publishers, but new “hopes” center around Rockstar Games’ guaranteed mega-hit Grand Theft Auto 6 release this fall that “could re-establish packed video game prices after decades of deflation despite rampant cost growth.” 

GTA 6, the long-awaited follow-up to 2013’s GTA 5, will hit store shelves for Xbox and PlayStation this fall. We should note GTA 6 has been previously delayed… 

• Analysts Fear Possible Delays Of Grand Theft Auto VI Release

• Take-Two Shares Drop After Grand Theft Auto VI Delayed Again

Ahead of GTA 5’s release, Goldman analysts reiterated in November a “Buy” rating on Take-Two, the owner of Rockstar Games, with a 12-month price target that was shifted up from $186 to $205. 

DFC Intelligence, the oldest market analyst firm covering the video games industry, forecasted that GTA 6 could generate over $3 billion in its first year of sales, including $1 billion from just pre-orders. This positions GTA 6 to potentially become the largest-ever entertainment release in history. 

Epyllion’s Ball predicts that GTA 6 could help reverse the deflationary downturn in the video game industry, stating: “Some game makers hope GTA 6 will be priced at $80-100, breaking the $70 barrier and helping $50 titles move up to $60, $60 to $70, $70 to $80.” 

He also noted that at $70, GTA 6 would be the “cheapest” entry in the series in relative terms. This suggests a $10-$30 price increase is ahead for the release this fall, which could benefit the video game industry as a whole. 

In the early 2000s, video games were priced around $50. By the mid-2000s, this increased to $60, and in 2020, the industry raised the price of AAA-rated games to $70. 

“Packaged game prices have never been lower in real terms than they are today — even though budgets are at all-time highs and player growth is stalled,” Ball continued, adding, “GTA 6 could re-establish packed video game prices after decades of deflation despite rampant cost growth.”

Reacting to Ball’s lengthy note, Michael Douse, publishing director at Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian, wrote on X, “You’re not supposed to say this out loud!”

Douse continued, “A good company raises salaries in line with inflation so that their staff don’t die or something, but games prices haven’t risen with inflation. This isn’t the reason the industry is in the shit for now, but it is an uncomfortable truth. On the other hand, the responsibility for a game developer is to make sure that the game they show lives up to that promise, and that investment from the player.”

A good company raises salaries in line with inflation so that their staff don’t die or something, but games prices haven’t risen with inflation. This isn’t the reason the industry is in the shit for now, but it is an uncomfortable truth. On the other hand, the responsibility for…

— Very AFK (@Cromwelp) January 19, 2025

$70, $80, even $100—price increases are unlikely to deter hardcore gamers who have waited over a decade for GTA 6. 

The question remains whether GTA 6 can single-handedly save the video game industry from a deflationary death spiral. 

Authored by Jim Banks via RealClearDefense,

For four years, we have seen the consequences of weak leadership in the White House: a world rife with conflict, a foreign policy that has emboldened adversaries like Communist China and Iran and abandoned allies like Israel further degrading American security. 

This past fall, the American people voted to usher in an era of renewed American strength. President Trump campaigned on a promise to restore American leadership on the world stage and is appointing the right team to ensure that promises made are promises kept. Specifically at international institutions like the United Nations, this America First leadership cannot come soon enough. Elise Stefanik is the perfect choice to deliver on President Trump’s agenda as Ambassador to the United Nations.

Her pledge to bring “transparency and reform” to the international body is desperately needed. For too long, American interests have taken a backseat at the UN.

The UN rakes in billions of American taxpayer dollars while actively undermining our interests. It allows the worst human rights abusers to sit on the so-called “Human Rights Council,” pushes a radical climate agenda that would destroy our energy industry, and persecutes our most greatest ally Israel while turning a blind eye to bad actors like China and Iran.

Elise understands that there can be no equivocation in our support for our greatest ally, Israel. As a fellow member of the Armed Services Committee during our shared time in the House, she joined me in pushing legislation after legislation that ensures Israel’s right to defend itself and combat the rampant antisemitism polluting our institutions including the United Nations. 

At a time when we face upheaval across the globe, Elise understands that security and peace can only be obtained through strength. Gone are the days of allowing our adversaries unchecked. And under President Trump’s historic national security team filled with my former colleagues and friends, we will restore American standing to the world stage. 

During his first administration, President Trump successfully instituted a historic maximum pressure campaign to hold Iran accountable for its violent actions. Working alongside Congress and with President Trump in the White House, Elise will use her position at the UN to strengthen international pressure on the Iranian regime and hold them accountable once again. 

In addition to standing with Israel and combating Iranian aggression, another key pillar of restoring American strength will be standing up to China, which continues to be a pressing threat to our nation’s security.

Elise summed up the dire need for UN reform and specifically the influence of Communist China when she wrote, “We must strive for a UN in which no one nation is expected to foot the bill but receive no accountability or transparency in return, in which no despot or dictator can sit in judgment of others while deflecting attention away from their own human rights abuses, and in which no organization corrupted by the likes of the Chinese Communist Party can dictate sweeping conventions and international standards across its membership.”

As we saw from their actions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the UN and its World Health Organization are in the pocket of Communist China and its leadership. Across the UN body, subagencies have become mouthpieces for Communist Chinese talking points turning a blind eye to their disgusting human rights violations as they hypocritically chastise other nations’ on the matter from their seat on the Human Rights Council. Under America First leadership and with Elise at the helm, the United Nations will root out this corruption, ensuring accountability for taxpayer dollars sent to the United Nation serve the American people first and foremost. Elise has proven time and time again to be a fighter who will not stand idly by while these international organizations do China’s bidding. 

During her time in public office Elise has shown that she will fight to protect the interests of the American people, defend American sovereignty, and strengthen American security by empowering our allies like Israel and deterring the malign actions of our adversaries like Communist China and Iran. 

Now more than ever that fighting spirit is needed at the UN. I look forward to voting in support of her nomination on the Senate floor and encourage my colleagues to follow suit. 

Sen. Jim Banks (Rep,, Ind.) he preveiously represented Indiana’s 3rd District in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“Was Biden China’s Manchurian candidate the entire time?” David Asher, an expert on illicit financing who previously worked at the US Defense and State Departments, asked on X, following the last-minute pardons that former President Biden issued on Monday morning for family members, including his brother, James Biden; his sister-in-law, Sara Jones Biden; his sister, Valerie Biden Owens; his brother-in-law, John T. Owens; and his youngest brother, Francis Biden. 

The Biden Crime Family pic.twitter.com/HNo1hf22ln

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) January 21, 2025

Asher said, “Biden just pardoned his family, not just Hunter. It’s a clear indication that they have a secret to cover up. Bohai (aka BHR) is worth billions. Via beneficial interest, Biden family may own up to 27%.” 

Biden just pardoned his family, not just Hunter. It’s a clear indication that they have a secret to cover up. Bohai (aka BHR) is worth billions. Via beneficial interest Biden family may own up to 27%. Was Biden China’s Manchurian candidate the entire time? pic.twitter.com/5S26KEIbnY

— David Asher (@dasher8090) January 20, 2025

Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, Hunter Biden’s “sugar brother,” purchased Hunter’s 10% stake in the China-backed investment firm BHR Partners during President Biden’s first year in office. The move allowed the Biden family to declare they had divested from foreign business interests. 

Asher noted, “Hunter says he sold his shares in 2021 to his lawyer/landlord Smith but if that truly happened he would received several billion dollars,” adding, “No evidence of that. All signs are he owns at least 18.8%.” 

Biden’s beneficial interest (and likely direct shadow ownership based on Chinese sources) in Bohai is worth billions of dollars. Hunter says he sold his shares in 2021 to his lawyer/landlord Smith but if that truly happened he would received several billion dollars. No evidence… https://t.co/L0ELFELnXu

— David Asher (@dasher8090) January 20, 2025

“Bohai appears to own China defense company, Zhongkui Group as well. So potential direct ties to the People’s Liberation Army and domestic/foreign Chinese intelligence. WTF??” Asher emphasized. 

Bohai appears to own China defense company, Zhongkui Group as well. So potential direct ties to the People’s Liberation Army and domestic/foreign Chinese intelligence. WTF?? https://t.co/DqcpEDWszk pic.twitter.com/qEcI3fvRnI

— David Asher (@dasher8090) January 20, 2025

Hmmm.

BHR have taken down their website—just in time for the Biden family pardon. Sound suspicious?? https://t.co/QkeQoJkeCQ pic.twitter.com/5gRm8hLZvb

— David Asher (@dasher8090) January 20, 2025

Asher questioned: “Are their associates (Bulger, Morris, et al.) “beneficial shareholders” and have been the whole time? What did they do to be given “golden” founders shares, to begin with, if not for the Biden’s?”

He continued, “Their shares apparently were worth hundreds of millions and possibly billions, at least on paper? So they received this from a Chinese Communist Party company – it is apparently the oldest private equity fund in all of China. While Biden was Vice President and then President? Why are Hunter’s buddies still on the board and or “supervisors.” What’s the deal between Whitey Bulger’s family and the Bidens? Was Biden a Manchurian candidate for the ChiComms?” 

Asher reposted a clip of Peter Schweizer, who said the Biden family pardons are merely “an extension of Joe Biden himself and his role in the family’s dealings.” 

As we said in December when Joe Biden pardoned his son, these pardons are an extension of Joe Biden himself and his role in the family’s dealings. https://t.co/F2hOMUVUCg pic.twitter.com/1SYVjyvdXx

— Peter Schweizer (@peterschweizer) January 20, 2025

Earlier, the former president said blanket pardons to family members do not acknowledge wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be viewed as an admission of guilt. They cover all nonviolent offenses beginning on Jan. 1, 2014. This comes as various Biden family members have been under investigation for influence peddling.

Here’s Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden pictured with Hunter’s Chinese business associates at a 2013 dinner in Beijing. 

Zero Hedge notes that former President Biden denied attending any dinner or meeting with Hunter’s Chinese business associates. 

REPORTER (@stevennelson10): “You didn’t have dinner or lunch [with your son’s business partners]?”

BIDEN (lying): “No!” pic.twitter.com/GV7SnjISXv

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 2, 2024

Speaking with The Hill on Monday, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY.) said the pardons “validated” the investigations into Biden family members.

“We finished our investigation, we published a very detailed report, and I think the pardons validate everything in that report,” Comer said, adding, “Now it’s Pam Bondi’s.”

Biden BHR was partners with a CCP United Front entity. How do the hell does this happen? Read this and weep!
Thank God for Trump. Hope AG Bondi goes to work on the Manchurian candidate ASAP. This is crazy. pic.twitter.com/o03Ns4wcj9

— David Asher (@dasher8090) January 21, 2025

Asher continued, “Trump is making history on day one. We are going to end the BS in the USG and make things in government and for the people more than great again. Trump’s better than he’s ever been before. Even old line conservatives need to get on board.” 

“If I get back in, the deep State will be upended and we will make the Department of State great again under Secretary Rubio— who is a total genius and tremendous leader under the president. China will pay for COVID and fentanyl. Iran will not be forgiven for attempting to kill the president and many others while it moves to build nukes to destabilize the Middle East and threaten the US and Europe. We can do a great deal without resorting to kinetic force. Peace through strength!” he concluded. 

The key takeaway is that the last-minute pardons for various members of the Biden family prompted Asher to conduct a public forensic analysis, which raises more questions than answers—particularly about whether Hunter still has ties (potentially beneficial interest) to BHR despite allegedly divesting several years ago. 

Biden has just pardoned his brother and four other relatives, in addition to Hunter. It’s a tacit admission of their guilt. The Bidens took tens of millions from people “directly tied to the spy apparatus of China. All the people involved had ties to Chinese intelligence.” https://t.co/8T4dKCwZJQ pic.twitter.com/EdE5tICuca

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) January 20, 2025

According to a 2022 Fox News report, Peter Schweizer stated that the CCP leadership employs a strategy known as “elite capture” to influence or buy off prominent US oligarchs—potentially including the Bidens—to avoid direct conflict.

“If we [CCP] can capture them with sweetheart deals, with other benefits, we can effectively lobotomize the United States by making them unresponsive to our threats,” Schweizer said of Beijing’s strategy. 

During Biden’s first term, China was largely unchecked in its military base expansion in the South China Sea, the presence of PLA ships in Japanese waters, the deployment of hypersonic missiles capable of destroying US aircraft carriers, and simulated war-gaming around Taiwan. Spy balloons floated over US territory, the drug crisis—fueled by fentanyl precursor chemicals from China smuggled via Mexican cartels across open southern and northern borders—intensified, the origins of Covid from a potential Chinese lab leak were dismissed, and the largest offensive cyberattack against the US (still ongoing) occurred, all without a clear policy response from the Biden administration and a rudderless Department of Defense.

Asher concluded: “This honeypot strategy by the CCP is as old as time. It’s hard to believe the Bidens would fall for it—let alone get away with it—while the corporate media fails to grasp or report on the massive scale, scope, and influence of Bohai within the Chinese Communist Party establishment.”

All of this may explain why former President Biden preemptively pardoned his family members.

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The outcome of Trump’s continued struggle with the “deep state” will reverberate across the world…

Putin’s senior aide Nikolai Patrushev, who ran the FSB for nearly a decade (1999-2008) before chairing the Security Council for over 15 years till recently (2008-2024), made three predictions about international affairs in his latest interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda. The first concerns the continued struggle between Trump and the “deep state”, the latter of which can be described as US’ permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies, some members of whom are known to oppose him.

Patrushev expects Trump to implement domestic and foreign policies that are practically the opposite of Biden’s, which he characterizes as pragmatic and more aligned with the interests of the American people, but he’s unsure whether he’ll ultimately succeed due to internal resistance. The precedent from his first term bodes ill for his second, but the outcome of this latest struggle will reverberate for decades seeing as how the world is undergoing far-reaching systemic changes last seen since 1991.

On that topic, Patrushev assessed that one of Trump’s top foreign policy priorities is to ramp up pressure on China, including by artificially exacerbating bilateral tensions.

He then reminded everyone that “For us, China has been and remains a most important partner, with whom we have relations of especially privileged strategic cooperation. These relations are not subject to the situation, they remain regardless of who occupies the Oval Office.” This can be interpreted as signaling that Russia won’t backstab China.

In other words, Trump’s declared goal of “un-uniting” those two will fail, thus meaning that no worsening of their relations will occur. This shouldn’t be misunderstood as suggesting that Russia will go out of its way to help China at the expense of provoking the US’ wrath, however, seeing as how China hasn’t done that for Russia. After all, the Chinese-based BRICS Bank and SCO comply with US sanctions against Russia as do some of its local banks, all of which is proven in the preceding hyperlinked analyses.

A Chinese company also pulled out of Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 megaproject under sanctions duress too while private drone companies sell their wares to Ukraine. At the same time, Russia continues arming China’s Indian rival to the teeth despite their nascent rapprochement, and it also authorized the shipment of jointly Indian produced BrahMos supersonic missiles to the Philippines a year ago. Accordingly, while Sino-Russo ties will remain strong, some differences will nevertheless still exist.

And finally, the last prediction that Patrushev made in his latest interview was that Moldova and Ukraine might cease to exist as a result of their anti-Russian policies, with the first possibly “becoming part of another state” in an allusion to joining Romania like some nationalists there want to have happen. As for the second, his ominous prediction was preceded by him remarking about how such policies “are destroying once prosperous cities in Ukraine, including Kharkov, Odessa, Nikolaev, and Dnepropetrovsk.”

While some might believe that he’s implying that Russian forces will sweep across both to the Romanian and Polish borders respectively, it’s much more likely that he simply wants Moldova, Ukraine, and their shared American patron to bear in mind the possibly existential stakes if the conflict further escalates. Of course, it’s also possible that one or both collapse under the weight of their anti-Russian policies due to a combination of domestic instability and Russian pressure, but that probably isn’t what he meant.

This take on his intentions stems from what else he said about the need for Russia to only negotiate with the US, not with the UK, the EU, or anyone else. He reaffirmed that Russia will achieve its goals in the conflict and won’t cede any territory, but the overall impression is that Russia is interested in compromising with Trump the pragmatist, though the potential failure to agree to a decent deal (perhaps due to “deep state” subterfuge) could doom Moldova and Ukraine (at least with time).

Reflecting on Patrushev’s predictions, all three are grounded in a solid understanding of their associated dynamics, which is to be expected from someone like him. What unites them all is whether or not Trump will succeed in overcoming “deep state” opposition to his policies, thus making this domestic aspect of his platform globally important. If he does, then the US will likely cut a deal in Ukraine in order to “Pivot (back) to Asia” pronto, while it’ll likely remain in Ukraine and possibly even escalate if he doesn’t.

In the past, the name Costco has been synonymous with high employee morale and quality of life. The company has been revered as a place to work due to its good pay, stock options and high focus on employee retention. 

But leave it to unions to take that and flip it on its head. 

Now, “eighteen thousand Costco Teamsters are preparing to strike if a ‘fair contract offer’ is not presented by the end of the month,” according to a new report from Fox Business News. 

Eighty-five percent of Costco Teamsters nationwide voted to authorize a strike, according to a Sunday press release. As final negotiations began on January 20, tensions rose with practice pickets held in California, Washington, and Long Island. Hundreds in San Diego are set to join a large practice picket by Thursday, the union said.

Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien commented: “From day one, we’ve told Costco that our members won’t work a day past January 31 without a historic, industry-leading agreement.”

“Costco’s greedy executives have less than two weeks to do the right thing. If they refuse, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves when our members go on strike,” he continued. 

Bryan Fields, a Costco worker in Baltimore, added: “We are the backbone of Costco. We drive its success and generate its profits. We hope the company will step up and do right by us, but if they don’t, that’s on them. The company will be striking itself.”

Costco’s website says it “is often noted for being much more employee-focused than other Fortune 500 companies. By offering fair wages and top-notch benefits, the company has created a workplace culture that attracts positive, high-energy, talented employees.”

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

In a recent post, I discussed Wall Street’s return estimates for 2025 for the S&P 500 index. To wit:

“We have some early indications of Wall Street targets for the S&P 500 index, and, as is always the case, they are optimistic for the coming year. The median estimate is for the market to rise to 6600 next year, which would be a disappointing return of just 8.2% after two years of 20% plus gains. However, the high estimate from Wells Fargo suggests a 14% return, with the low estimate from UBS of just a 5% return. Notably, there is not one estimate available for a negative return.”

However, it isn’t just Wall Street analysts who are optimistic about 2025 returns. Retail investors are the most optimistic about higher stock prices in 2025 by the most on record. Unsurprisingly, that sentiment resulted in the psychological rush to overpay for assets, pushing forward 1-year valuations sharply higher.

Note that I stated that optimism about returns in 2025 is primarily a function of psychology. Over the last 15 years, stock market returns have run well above the long-term average of roughly 8%. Over the long run, which is the last 125 years, stocks have returned roughly 6% from capital appreciation and 4% from dividends on a nominal basis. However, since inflation has averaged approximately 2.5% over the same period, real returns are roughly 7.5% annually.

The chart below shows the average annual inflation-adjusted total returns (dividends included) since 1948. I used total return data Aswath Damodaran, NYU Stern School of Business. The chart shows that from 1948 to 2024, the market returned 9.26% after inflation. However, after the 2008 financial crisis, inflation-adjusted total returns jumped by nearly three percentage points for the last three observation periods.

Here is the issue. Total real (inflation-adjusted) stock market returns are easy to calculate. They are a function of economic growth (GDP) plus dividends less inflation. Such was the case from 1948 to 2000. However, since 2008, GDP growth has averaged roughly 5% with a dividend yield of 2%, yet returns have far surpassed what the economy can generate in earnings.

Those consistently higher returns over the last 15 years have trained investors to expect elevated portfolio returns from the financial markets.

But is that realistic?

A Decade And A Half Of Outsized Returns

As we head into 2025, we must review what drove those outsized returns over the past 15 years and review what conditions exist today to support elevated returns in the future.

As noted, over the long term, there is an obvious relationship between the stock market and the economy. This is because economic activity creates corporate revenues and earnings. As such, stocks can not indefinitely grow faster than the economy over long periods. When stocks deviate from the underlying economy, the eventual resolution is lower stock prices. For example, the chart below compares the three from 1947 through 2024. The surge in earnings in 2021 resulted from reopening the shuttered economy in 2020, but that reversed in 2022 and returned to normal growth rates in 2023-2024 along with economic growth. However, as shown above, asset price returns are well above normal despite slower earnings and declining economic growth rates.

Since 1947, earnings per share have grown at 7.72%, while the economy has expanded by 6.4% annually. That close relationship in growth rates is logical, given the significant role that consumer spending has in the GDP equation.

As we saw in 2021, the difference between earnings and GDP growth is due to periods when earnings can grow faster than the economy. This is the case when the economy is coming out of a recession. However, while nominal stock prices have averaged 9.36%, reversions to underlying economic growth eventually occur. This is because corporate earnings are a function of consumptive spending, corporate investments, imports, and exports. 

So, if the economic and earnings relationship is true, what explains the market disconnect from underlying economic activity over the last 15 years? In other words, what drove portfolio returns, if all else is equal? Two differences in the previous 15 years didn’t exist before 2008.

The first is corporate stock buybacks. While corporate share repurchases are not new, the egregious use of buybacks to boost earnings per share accelerated post-2008. As discussed previously:

“In a previous Wall Street Journal study, 93% of the respondents point to “influence on stock price” and “outside pressure” as reasons for manipulating earnings figures. Such is why stock buybacks have continued to rise in recent years. Following the “pandemic shutdown,” they skyrocketed.”

The second is monetary and fiscal interventions, unprecedented since the financial crisis.

As discussed in “The Markets Are Frontrunning The Fed.” the psychological change is a function of more than a decade of fiscal and monetary interventions that have separated the financial markets from economic fundamentals. Since 2007, the Federal Reserve and the Government have continuously injected roughly $40 Trillion in liquidity into the financial system and the economy to support growth.

That support entered the financial system, lifting asset prices and boosting consumer confidence to support economic growth. However, over the last two years, while the Federal Reserve reduced its balance sheet and lifted rates, stocks climbed higher on expectations the Fed would eventually reverse course.

At the same time, federal expenditures have continued to swell, offsetting the reduction in the Fed’s balance sheet and higher borrowing costs.

The high correlation between these interventions and the financial markets is evident. The only outlier was during the Financial Crisis when the Fed launched the first round of Quantitative Easing (Q.E.). What followed was multiple Government bailouts, support for the housing and financial markets, zero interest rates, and eventually direct checks to households in 2020.

Given the repeated history of financial interventions over the last 15 years, it is unsurprising that investors now expect elevated portfolio returns in the future.

However, there are headwinds to those assumptions as we head into 2025.

Headwinds In 2025

Since the election, optimism has increased that the Trump administration will pass policies that will boost economic activity, reduce regulations, and cut tax rates. That surge in optimism was evident in the most recent National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) survey.

However, there are risks to those more optimistic assumptions for strong economic growth and continued strong portfolio returns. As noted, we must assume several factors for the market to deliver above-average returns.

• Economic growth remains more robust than the average 20-year growth rate.

• Wage and labor growth must reverse (weaken) to sustain historically elevated profit margins.

• Both interest rates and inflation need to decline to support consumer spending.

• Trump’s planned tariffs will increase costs on some products and may not be fully offset by replacement and substitution.

• The planned reductions in Government spending, debt issuance, and the deficit do not occur, supporting corporate profitability (Kalecki Profit Equation).

• Slower economic growth in China, Europe, and Japan must reverse to support demand for U.S. exports.

• The Federal Reserve continues to cut rates and slows or stops the reduction of its balance sheet to support market liquidity.

However, the current data trends do not support those assumptions. This is particularly true when current valuations deviate from the long-term exponential growth trend. Earnings must grow rapidly to justify the excess valuations. However, if those earnings fail to meet elevated expectations, the eventual reversal of market prices to realign valuations with earnings realities can be somewhat brutal.

As Jeremy Grantham noted:

“All 2-sigma equity bubbles in developed countries have broken back to trend. But before they did, a handful went on to become superbubbles of 3-sigma or greater: in the U.S. in 1929 and 2000 and in Japan in 1989. There were also superbubbles in housing in the U.S. in 2006 and Japan in 1989. All five of these superbubbles corrected all the way back to trend with much greater and longer pain than average.

Today in the U.S. we are in the fourth superbubble of the last hundred years.”

Whether you agree or not that we are developing another market bubble is a choice. However, the deviation from long-term growth trends is unsustainable. Repeated financial interventions by the Federal Reserve and the government have caused the current deviation to be well above anything seen in previous history. Therefore, reversing returns to their long-term means seems inevitable unless the Federal Reserve is committed to a never-ending program of zero interest rates and quantitative easing.

Given the current market dynamics, it is hard to fathom how forward return rates will not be disappointing compared to the last decade. However, the excess returns investors have become accustomed to were the result of a monetary illusion. The consequence of dispelling that illusion will be challenging for investors.

Will this mean investors make NO money in 2025 or beyond? No. It only means that returns will likely be substantially lower than investors have witnessed recently. But then again, getting an average return in 2025 may be “feel” very disappointing to many.

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For more in-depth analysis and actionable investment strategies, visit RealInvestmentAdvice.com. Stay ahead of the markets with expert insights tailored to help you achieve your financial goals.

The head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi has resigned and will leave his post on March 6.

Halevi said in a statement that he’s leaving after “recognizing my responsibility for the failure of the IDF on October 7, and at the point in time in which the IDF has recorded significant achievements, and is in the process of implementing an agreement to release hostages,” according to the Times of Israel.

“I will transfer command of the IDF in a high-quality and thorough manner to my replacement,” he added.

Meanwhile, the head of the IDF Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, is following Halevi’s lead, and says he too plans to resign from the military over his responsibility for the IDF’s failures leading up to the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack.

“Following my conscience and the values that guide me, I have decided to conclude my tenure as Commander of the Southern Command and my service in the IDF,” Finkelman wrote in a letter to Halevi.

“On October 7, I failed in my duty to protect the Western Negev and its beloved, heroic residents.”

Following the resignations, the head of the Knesset’s opposition parties, Yair Lapid, called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to follow their lead and resign.

“I salute…Herzi Halevi. Now let the prime minister and his entire disastrous government take responsibility and resign,” Lapid posted on X.

Another opposition leader, Yisrael Beytenu, said “After the resignation of the [IDF] chief of staff, I call on the prime minister and the other members of the cabinet to take responsibility and follow him home.“