Authored by Andrew Korybko,

China is uniquely unqualified to mediate between them since it has territorial disputes with India and arms Pakistan to the teeth.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi recently claimed that his country mediated between India and Pakistan during last spring’s clashes, but it’s very difficult to believe that this actually happened.

Trump has repeatedly claimed the same despite India’s denials, which greatly contributed to the deterioration of their ties over the past year. India’s half-century-long position since the 1972 Simla Agreement has been that its problems with Pakistan are bilateral, ergo why it’s always rejected mediation since then.

Nevertheless, India cannot prevent other countries’ representatives from talking to Pakistan during bilateral crises, nor will it decline their calls after they’ve done so. Rather, it considers each pair of calls to be purely bilateral, and it’s always eager to share its perspective with them amidst regional tensions. After all, it would be a dereliction of its officials’ duty to voluntary cede the narrative to Pakistan, ergo why they’ll always take the opportunity to advance their country’s national interests during these times.

This background helps to better understand what China might have actually done last spring. Wang did indeed call his Pakistani counterpart Ishaq Dar and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval on the same day, but as explained above, this wouldn’t have amounted to mediation. China is uniquely unqualified to mediate between them anyhow since it has territorial disputes with India and arms Pakistan to the teeth. Some of this equipment like the JF-17s was also used against India last spring.

That said, perhaps Wang truly believes that his talks with those two played a role in the ceasefire that followed, but it’s still curious that he waited over half a year to claim that China played a mediation role. He’d also know by now how furious Trump’s claim made India and the role that it played in the deterioration of their relation over the past year. It’s therefore unclear why he’d risk dealing damage to the nascent Sino-Indo rapprochement partially brought about by the US’ aforesaid problems with India.

The context within which he made this claim helps explain his possible motive. He was speaking at a symposium titled “International Situation and China’s Foreign Relations” and was listing off examples of the “Chinese approach to settling hotspots.” The other examples included “northern Myanmar, the Iranian nuclear issue…the issues between Palestine and Israel, and the recent conflict between Cambodia and Thailand.” The only one that it can indisputably claim credit for is northern Myanmar.

The other four are Trump’s claimed achievements, though China has veritably tried mediating between Cambodia and Thailand but failed to get them to agree to a deal. In any case, the only cogent reason why Wang would portray all the others as examples of Chinese mediation even though it arguably didn’t play any such role in those conflicts is to promote China’s Global Security Initiative, one of President Xi Jinping’s flagship initiatives. The others concern development, civilization, and governance.

Wang seemingly calculated, whether rightly or wrongly, that promoting China’s Global Security Initiative at this specific moment in the global systemic transition is so important that it’s worth offending India. That’s the only explanation that makes sense, especially since he waited over half a year to make this claim and did so during an end-of-the-year diplomatic review, but this doesn’t mean that India will be understanding about it and his boast could still needlessly complicate their nascent rapprochement.

A healthy diet is often discussed as a top public health issue, but affordability remains one of its biggest barriers.

Over the past decade, food prices have climbed due to inflation, supply chain disruptions, and climate-related shocks. At the same time, incomes and food access have improved in many regions.

This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, highlights how these competing forces have shaped the global cost of eating well—and who is still being left behind.

The data for this visualization comes from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. It tracks the average daily cost of a healthy diet worldwide.

Healthy Diet Costs Are Rising

A healthy diet is defined as providing 2,330 kilocalories per day, with nutritionally adequate proportions across six food groups. These include starchy staples, vegetables, fruits, animal-source foods, legumes, nuts and seeds, and oils and fats.

In 2017, the average global cost of a healthy diet was $3.14 per person per day. By 2024, that figure had climbed to $4.46. The sharpest increases occurred after 2020, coinciding with pandemic-related disruptions and global food price inflation.

Affordability Is Improving Despite Higher Prices

While costs have risen, affordability has steadily improved. In 2017, 38.4% of the global population—about 2.93 billion people—could not afford a healthy diet. By 2024, that share had fallen to 31.9%, representing roughly 2.6 billion people.

Despite global progress, affordability challenges remain concentrated in low-income and conflict-affected regions. Even small increases in food prices can have outsized effects where households already spend a large share of income on food.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out How Much Meat do We Eat? on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Pepe Escobar,

So the Big Oil Picture in Venezuela is way more complex than the Trump 2.0 gang suspects…

Let’s start with neo-Caligula’s new edicts on the imperial satrapy he says he now owns; not exactly edicts but outright threats directed to interim President Delcy Rodriguez:

1. Crack down on “drug trafficking flows”. Well, this should actually be directed to Colombian and Mexican smugglers in cahoots with big American buyers.

2. Expel Iranian, Cuban, and other “operatives hostile to Washington” – before Caracas is allowed to increase oil production. Not happening.

3. Halt oil sales to “US adversaries”. Not happening.

Hence it becomes a near certainty that neo-Caligula may bomb Venezuela again.

Neo-Caligula, in a separate motormouth offensive, also clarified that he wants to somewhat overhaul the oil business in Venezuela via subsidies. It “could take less than 18 months”; then it morphed to “we can do it in less time than that, but it’ll be a lot of money”; and finally morphed to “a tremendous amount of money will have to be spent and the oil companies will spend it.”

No, they won’t, as several proverbial “industry insiders” have advanced. US energy majors balk at the sight of investing fortunes in a nation that may be engulfed by total chaos if neo-Caligula forces a traitorous government over 28 million people.

According to Rystad Energy Analysis, it would take no less than 16 years and at least $183 billion for Venezuela to produce a mere 3 million barrels of oil a day.

Neo-Caligula’s ultimate dream is to reduce global oil prices to a maximum $50 a barrel. For this purpose, the Trump 2.0 imperial gig will, in thesis, totally control PDVSA, including acquisition and sale of virtually all of its oil production.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, at a Goldman Sachs energy conference, let the oily cat out of the bag:

“We are going to market the crude coming out of Venezuela, first this backed up stored oil [up to 50 million barrels], and then infinitely, going forward, we will sell the production that comes out of Venezuela into the marketplace.”

So essentially the neo-Caligula gig will capture, actually steal the sale of crude from PDVSA, with the money theoretically deposited in US-controlled offshore accounts to “benefit the Venezuelan people”.

There’s no way Delcy Rodriguez’s interim government will accept what amounts to de facto theft. Even as Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller is bragging that the US is using “military threat” to maintain control of Venezuela. If you are really in control, you don’t need to issue threats.

So what about China?

China was importing roughly 746,000 barrels of oil a day from Venezuela. That’s not much. Beijing is already working on replacing it with imports from Iran. China essentially is not dependent on Venezuelan oil. Apart from Iran, it may also source from Russia and Saudi Arabia.

Beijing clearly sees that the imperial overdrive in the Western Hemisphere and in West Asia is not just about oil, but also to force China to buy energy with petrodollars. Nonsense: with Russia, the Persian Gulf and beyond, the name of the game is already petroyuan.

China is 80% energy independent. Venezuela de facto was accounting for a mere 2% of the 20% China imports – and this according to the US government’s own numbers.

China’s energy relationship with Venezuela goes way beyond cheap American formulas. Here is essentially outlined how “Chinese oil agreements with Venezuela are de facto binding financial contracts, with repayment mechanisms, collateral structures, penalty clauses, and derivative linkages embedded deep into global finance (…) They are connected – directly and indirectly – to Western financial institutions, commodity traders, insurers, and clearing systems, including entities tied to Wall Street. If these contracts are broken, the consequence is not China ‘taking a loss’. It is a cascade event: defaults triggering counterparty exposure, derivatives being repriced, legal disputes crossing jurisdictions, and confidence shock spreading outward. At a certain point, this ceases to be a Venezuelan problem and becomes a systemic global one.”

Moreover, “over the past twenty years, China has become the operational core of Venezuela’s oil industry. Not merely as a buyer, but as a builder. China provided refinery technology, heavy crude upgrading systems, infrastructure design, control software, spare parts logistics (…) Remove the Chinese engineers. Remove the technicians who understand the control logic. Remove the maintenance supply chains. Remove the software support. What remains is not a functioning oil industry waiting to be ‘liberated’, but an inert shell.”

Conclusion: “Converting Venezuela’s Chinese-built oil sector into an American one would take three to five years, minimum.”

Financial analyst Lucas Ekwame hits the major points. Venezuela produces superheavy oil as thick as tar. It doesn’t just flow; it needs to be melted to reach the surface, and after extraction, it hardens again, requiring diluent: no less than 0.3 barrels of diluent need to be imported for each exported barrel.

Compound it with Venezuela’s energy infrastructure shaped by China and at the same time suffering years of American sanctions, even worse than over Iraq in the early 2000s, and neo-Caligula’s faulty oil “strategy” becomes obvious.

That of course does not alter the short-term feast of imperial hedge fund vultures over Venezuela’s carcass, starting with ghastly Paul Singer, the billionaire Zionist hedge fund manager and MAGA super PAC donor ($42 million in 2024) whose Elliott Management acquired the Houston-based subsidiary of CITGO for $5.9 billion in November, less than a third of its $18 billion market value, thanks to the embargo on Venezuelan oil imports.

The speculative money crowd is bound to cash in on up to $170 billion in the debt market; defaulted PDVSA bonds alone are worth over $60 billion.

So the Big Oil Picture in Venezuela is way more complex than the Trump 2.0 gang suspects. Of course on the road ahead we may come to a situation where the Viceroy of Venezuela, the gusano Marco Rubio, cuts off the oil flow from Caracas to Shanghai. Well, considering Rubio’s strategic “expertise”, better start regimenting battalions of lawyers right away.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.

Silver prices surged more than 5% in recent trading, breaking above $80 per ounce once again.

The rally has been driven by China’s restrictions on silver exports, rising demand from green technologies like solar power, and renewed interest in safe-haven assets.

This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, highlights the world’s largest silver-producing countries and shows where global supply is most concentrated.

The data for this visualization comes from the U.S. Geological Survey’s Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025. It presents estimated silver mine production by country for 2024.

Mexico’s Production Dominance

Total world silver production reached roughly 25,000 metric tons in 2024.

Mexico remained the world’s top silver producer in 2024, with an estimated 6,300 metric tons of output. The country has held this position for decades, supported by extensive mining infrastructure and high-grade deposits. Notably, Mexico produces far more silver than its reserve share might suggest, holding only about 6% of the world’s known reserves.

China and Peru Anchor Global Supply

China ranked second globally, producing around 3,300 metric tons of silver in 2024. Much of this output comes as a byproduct of large-scale base metal mining, particularly lead and zinc.

Peru followed closely with approximately 3,100 metric tons, reinforcing South America’s importance in global silver markets.

Together, these three countries accounted for more than half of global silver production.

Beyond the top producers, countries such as Bolivia, Poland, Chile, Russia, and the United States each produced between 1,100 and 1,300 metric tons. Australia, Kazakhstan, Argentina, and India also contributed meaningful volumes.

Despite this diversity, the silver market remains tight. Strong demand from solar panels, electronics, and electrification is expected to keep the market in a deficit, putting upwards pressure on silver prices.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out All of the World’s Oil Reserves by Country, in One Visualization on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Authored by Mollie Engelhart via The Epoch Times,

California was my home for most of my adult life—long enough to know that what looks good in a campaign slogan can feel very different when you’re the one carrying the load.

I built restaurants there. I employed people there. I signed permits, licenses, and applications like they were holiday cards. I navigated agencies that asked for more paperwork than profit statements. I paid into a system that always wanted one more filing, one more inspection, one more approval, one more fee. The joke was that my assistant didn’t work in hospitality—she worked in compliance. And it was true. That state turns compliance into a profession.

So when I see the latest proposal—a one-time 5 percent tax on anyone whose net worth exceeds $1 billion—I don’t see Robin Hood. I see Sacramento writing itself a permission slip.

The pitch says “billionaires.” But the mechanism says “total assessed wealth, declared by the owner, verified by the state, and enforceable through audit.”

That’s a power move, not a nuance.

A Tax Based on Valuation, Not Reality

Most taxes in America hit earnings or consumption. You pay when you make money, or when you buy something, or when you sell something. This proposal taxes accumulation. It doesn’t ask what you can afford. It asks what you have, and then hands a calculator to the agencies to determine the bill.

We’ve seen how this evolves. The Biden administration and Vice President Kamala Harris already proposed a federal wealth tax on Americans worth $100 million or more. Not billionaires—$100 million. That’s a signal flare, not a footnote.

It tells you exactly what you need to know: This idea isn’t anchored at the top. It’s already drifting toward the middle.

And middle is where most of the money actually lives.

The Constitution Saw This Coming

There’s a phrase from constitutional law that gets thrown around a lot in conversations like this: bill of attainder.

A bill of attainder is a law that punishes a specific person or small identifiable group without a trial, skipping the courts and due process entirely. In the United States, that kind of law is unconstitutional—lawmakers don’t get to play judge and jury and penalize a select group through legislation alone.

This proposal isn’t a criminal punishment, but the reason people bring the term up at all is because it targets a tiny group by valuation for a massive extraction event without a court proceeding first. That resemblance matters if you believe fairness isn’t optional.

The Wealthy Already Pay Plenty—Just Quietly

People talk about the “rich dodging taxes” like it’s gospel. Let me tell you what actually happens when you build something in California:

You don’t dodge taxes, you drown in them. Not just income tax, not just property tax, but sales tax, alcoholic beverage tax, payroll taxes, employer-side filings, permits, licensing fees, inspections, regulatory approvals, environmental health certificates, building permits, land use permits, and on and on and on.

That state has already been collecting revenue from business owners in every direction long before this proposal ever landed on the ballot.

If you want to know why business owners left, it wasn’t a lack of patriotism. It was math.

The Trojan Horse Isn’t the Billionaire—It’s the Precedent

The billionaires are the branding. The mascot. The costume the idea wears so voters don’t inspect the gears.

But the gears are what matter, because once a state passes a tax on total assessed wealth, future thresholds can be lowered, exemptions can be rewritten, valuation formulas can be expanded, and enforcement will land in the hands of agencies most voters will never meet—but business owners never stop meeting.

The real question is not “Should billionaires pay more?” but “Should the state have the right to tax total assessed wealth at all?”

Because once that precedent exists, the definition of “rich” will keep shifting, the net will keep widening, and the bill will keep climbing down the balance sheet toward the people who never imagined they’d qualify.

A millionaire today in California is someone who owns a house. A house today costs a million dollars there. That’s not a billionaire. That’s a math teacher and a firefighter and a family with a mortgage.

The net will widen because the money they need is not all at the top. There’s much more sitting in the middle.

And middle-class is where precedent always ends up grazing.

My Stance

I lean libertarian—I don’t want government in every aspect of our lives, our kitchens, our land, or our asset valuations. I’m a hard no on expanding its discretion any further. The slogans may be sticky, but freedoms are stickier—once lost, they don’t come back.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

President Donald Trump’s push for U.S. oil companies to commit at least $100 billion toward rebuilding Venezuela’s energy industry is meeting significant resistance from the very executives he is courting, according to Bloomberg.

Although the White House projects confidence, industry leaders are warning that Venezuela remains too unstable for major investment, with Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods describing the country bluntly as “uninvestable.”

At a closed-door meeting Friday with roughly 20 energy executives, Trump said he expected an agreement “today or very shortly thereafter” to restart large-scale drilling in Venezuela following the removal of Nicolás Maduro. He applied direct pressure, telling the group, “If you don’t want to go in, just let me know, because I’ve got 25 people that aren’t here today that are willing to take your place.”

Publicly, many executives praised the opportunity. Privately and in their remarks, they expressed deep concern about risk, governance, and long-term returns. Woods delivered the strongest warning, pointing to Venezuela’s unstable business environment and past expropriations. “If we look at the legal and commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela today, it’s uninvestable,” he said, noting Exxon’s assets there had already been seized twice. He questioned whether any future protections would hold: “How durable are the protections from a financial standpoint? What will the returns look like? What are the commercial arrangements, the legal frameworks?” Even so, he added that Exxon would be willing “to put a team on the ground” if invited and given proper security guarantees.

Other executives struck a cautious tone. Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm said the prospect “excites me as an explorationist,” but emphasized the scale of the task ahead: “There’s a huge investment that needs to be done — we’ve all agreed on that, and certainly we need time to see that through.”

Bloomberg writes that Trump, however, left the meeting projecting momentum. “We sort of formed a deal,” he told reporters, predicting companies would soon be investing “hundreds of billions of dollars in drilling oil.” Yet when pressed for specifics, Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged that Chevron — the only U.S. major still operating in Venezuela — was the only firm to make a concrete pledge. Chevron Vice Chairman Mark Nelson said production, now about 240,000 barrels per day, could rise by roughly 50% within 18 to 24 months.

Trump sought to ease investor fears by promising sweeping protections: “You have total safety, total security,” he said. “You’re dealing with us directly — you’re not dealing with Venezuela or we don’t want you to deal with Venezuela.” Wright later said the administration’s priority is to “change the behavior of the government in Venezuela” and “drive better business conditions.”

The meeting included moments of levity over massive past losses. When ConocoPhillips CEO Ryan Lance said his company had absorbed a $12 billion hit in Venezuela, Trump replied, “Good write-off,” prompting Lance to respond, “It’s already been written off.”

Some executives were openly eager. Repsol’s CEO told Trump his company was “ready to invest more in Venezuela today,” and Armstrong Oil & Gas CEO Bill Armstrong said, “We are ready to go to Venezuela… it is prime real estate… kind of like West Palm about 50 years ago: very ripe.”

Still, many industry figures are uneasy about the optics and risks of the administration’s strategy, which critics argue amounts to an aggressive grab for Venezuela’s vast oil reserves. Trump defended the move bluntly: “If we didn’t do this, China or Russia would have done it.”

Despite the uncertainty, Wright predicted Venezuela’s output would “hopefully” begin rising by summer and said, “They are going to ramp up investment immediately in the next few weeks… Can we achieve $100 billion investment over next 10 years? I think absolutely.”

Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves, but decades of neglect, sanctions, and infrastructure collapse have pushed production below one million barrels per day. Rebuilding even a fraction of its former output will require years of work and tens of billions of dollars to repair abandoned rigs, corroded pipelines, and heavily damaged facilities.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

In late-18th-century America, something of minimal value was often described as being “not worth a continental,” which referred to the continental dollar, the American currency at the time of the revolution.

The continental was paper money. It had occurred to the colonists that, as their revolution was costing quite a bit to maintain, they could go into “temporary” debt to finance the war. Soon it became clear that the debt could not be repaid. Also, the printing of paper banknotes resulted in inflation. The solution? Print more of them. Further devaluation of the continental motivated the colonists to print more… then more… then still more. The continental became worthless, either for local trade or for repayment of debt.

The new country, the United States, then did something quite unusual. In its new Constitution, it created a clause to assure that this would never happen again. Under Article I, Section 10, the states were not permitted to “coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; [or] make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.”

The founding fathers of the US had figured out that the issuance of paper currency was a disaster in the making, and in 1792, passed the Coinage Act, denominating coins to be minted. The act authorized three gold coins: $10.00 eagles, $5.00 half eagles, and $2.50 quarter eagles, in addition to silver coins.

Of course, later US political leaders have largely committed the Constitution to the dustbin. Since that time, dozens of countries have followed a similar pattern of war/debt/hyperinflation. Let’s look at a few:

German 100 “billionen” mark banknote, ca. 1923

Reparations for WWI were required in hard currency. The papiermark was printed in mass quantity to buy foreign currency in order to pay reparations. The proliferation of bank notes caused the cost of goods to rise dramatically.

This rise was so dramatic that it led to a flight by Germans into hard assets, to avoid holding paper bank notes. (This is the classic tipping point at which inflation morphs into hyperinflation.) Predictably, governmental operation costs also rose. An increase in taxation was of no value, as it would be paid in the devaluating currency.

If the government stopped the inflation, this would cause immediate bankruptcies, unemployment, strikes, etc. But if they continued, they would default on the foreign debt through hyperinflation. They chose the latter, which, although ultimately more destructive, would buy the politicians a bit more time. (Hyperinflation is seen today as having paved the way for Adolf Hitler and the Nazi takeover of Germany.)

Hungarian 100 million billion pengő, ca. 1946

In 1945, Hungary was severely strapped for money, as a result of WWII. The Hungarian National Bank was instructed to issue currency proportional to whatever the budget required. Silver coinage disappeared. Banknotes were issued with no cover of any kind, and hyperinflation took hold.

As always, the government was confident that it could control inflation, but once hyperinflation took over, it was entirely beyond control. It is important to note that hyperinflation, once it begins, spreads like wildfire. The Hungarian hyperinflation began at the end of 1945 and peaked the following July.

Yugoslav 500 billion dinar banknote, ca. 1993

More recently, Yugoslavia, economically weakened by regional war, had used up all its hard currency reserves and decided to loot the savings of its citizens. This it did through the printing of money and increasing restrictions on citizens’ savings in government banks.

Not surprisingly, inflation rose dramatically. The government reacted by imposing price controls, which eliminated profits, so manufacturers ceased to produce essential goods. By 1993, when prices were doubling every fifteen hours, the country had reached the point that bakers stopped making bread.

Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar banknote, ca. 2008

Zimbabwe’s civil war emptied the country’s treasury. Beginning in1998, President Robert Mugabe took land and other assets from white farmers and redistributed them to less-experienced black farmers. Food exports plummeted, prompting Mugabe to print more currency. Revenues to government suffered as a result, with wages failing to keep up. Hospitals and schools developed chronic staffing problems, because nurses and teachers could not afford bus fare to get to work. The capital of Harare was without water, because the authorities had stopped paying the bills to buy and transport the treatment chemicals. By 2008, prices were doubling every 24 hours.

There are many other examples, but the ones listed above provide a fairly good thumbnail sketch. There are many paths by which political leaders may destroy a country’s economy through hyperinflation. But those leaders who follow the standard checklist of the most common components to collapse can generally be assured that the economy will be destroyed. Let’s have a look at that checklist:

• War (Can be one major war, or, as in today’s world, perpetual small wars)

• Depletion of gold reserves

• Excessive Debt (Create a debt level that is beyond the ability to repay)

• Devaluation of currency (Print massive amounts of currency to diminish debt)

• Loss of control of inflation (Inflation morphs into hyperinflation—a state in which citizens actively try to rid themselves of the currency, as it is devaluating so quickly.)

We are living in a period in which much of the world has committed the first three to four of the above grave errors and is reaching the tipping point at which the fifth kicks in. It’s important to emphasise that hyperinflation is never actually anticipated by governments; it always occurs suddenly, and it happens very fast. In addition, once begun, it never reverses direction. It always plays out until a complete monetary collapse occurs.

Back in the beginning paragraphs of this article, we mentioned that, in 1787, America’s founding fathers took the highly unusual step of enshrining in the Constitution a control to assure that private banks would never again create fiat currencies. The 1792 Coinage Act provided for a coin of the land—the “eagle,” which was to be made of gold.

The paper continental, along with the silver certificate and the gold certificate, has long since disappeared, but the US gold eagle is still being minted today.

And here’s the interesting aspect of gold coinage: The eagle has the same purchasing power as it did back in 1787. Whilst its nominal value may rise and fall, one ounce of gold purchases the same amount of goods as it has throughout history.

The significance of this is that gold, in essence, does not go up and down in value. Rather, gold is the standard by which currencies go up and down. Over the course of history, there have occasionally been anomalies in which gold is down for a brief time, or it is overbought and a bubble briefly occurs. But gold is like the seas: it has its tides, but like water, it seeks its own level and invariably continues as the standard of value.

In times like the present one, when we may anticipate the hyperinflation of numerous currencies, those seeking to preserve what they have, might wish to turn to gold as a relative safe haven, as mankind has done for 5000 years.

*  *  *

History is remarkably consistent. From the worthless continental to Weimar Germany, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe, the pattern is always the same—governments print their way out of trouble, currencies collapse, and those holding paper wealth pay the price. The constant thread running through every one of these episodes is that gold did not fail; the currencies around it did. If you’d like a deeper, unfiltered look at why gold has survived every monetary breakdown for thousands of years—and why it matters now—we’ve arranged a free video featuring legendary investor Doug Casey. In it, he explains what most commentators still refuse to acknowledge about today’s monetary system and what history suggests comes next. Click here to watch the free video now. 

It took nearly five years for the FBI to finally arrest someone for planting pipe bombs outside the headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, but the suspect may avoid serving a prison sentence thanks to the language in President Trump’s sweeping pardon of those who participated in Jan. 6 mayhem.

In that pardon issued on the day of his 2025 inauguration, Trump commuted the sentences of 14 people convicted of offenses springing from the Jan 6 demonstrations. Next, seeking to free some 1,500 others from convictions or pending prosecutions, Trump wrote, “I do hereby…grant a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

It seems immaterial that the charges against Brian Cole Jr for planting bombs came after Trump’s pardon, notes former federal prosecutor Ankush Khardori, writing at Politico: 

Trump could have specified that the pardon applied only to people who had been convicted or charged “as of the date” of his pardon…but there is no such language in Trump’s proclamation. Lest there be any doubt, the Supreme Court made clear more than 150 years ago that presidents have the constitutional authority to do this — that is, to issue “preemptive pardons” for past conduct even if that conduct has not been charged at the time of the pardon.  

In another context — relating to Trump’s pardon of those who sought to send alternate slates of electors to the 2020 Electoral College — Trump’s DOJ has claimed it has the power to determine which crimes Trump intended to include, but courts may take a dim view of that kind of de facto delegation of presidential pardon power, particularly where the plain language of the pardon is unambiguous and deliberately sweeping.

Federal prosecutors are behaving as if they fully appreciate the pardon’s potential to set Cole free and render their efforts futile. In both court filings and remarks in a hearing, they avoided using language that links Cole’s alleged actions to Jan. 6.   

Federal agents say that, when they interviewed him, Cole confessed to planting the two devices. So far, no full transcripts of those interviews have been published, only quotes the DOJ chose to include in its court filings. Here’s one key excerpt: 

“When asked why he placed the devices at the RNC and DNC, the defendant responded, ‘I really don’t like either party at this point’.” [Cole] also explained that the idea to use pipe bombs came from his interest in history, specifically the Troubles in Ireland. The defendant denied that his actions were directed toward Congress or related to the proceedings scheduled to take place on January 6.” 

Seeking to make the case that the pardon doesn’t apply, prosecutors will surely emphasize Cole’s denial that his bombing attempt had anything to do with Jan. 6. (Then again, they don’t provide an actual quotation of this purported denial.) Then there’s the fact that both bombs were planted in the early evening of Jan. 5. Prosecutors also say he Cole set the kitchen timers on the bombs for their maximum duration of 60 minutes — meaning they would have also exploded on Jan. 5. He told agents that his timing sprang from wanting to avoid killing anyone.   

However, before you conclude there’s nothing to the pardon concern, consider that the pardon uses the phrase “related to” events that occurred on Jan. 6. Having failed to detonate on Jan. 5, the bombs were discovered on Jan. 6. Cole’s lawyers can argue that the bombing attempt is “related” to Jan. 6 since it had the effect of diverting police to RNC and DNC headquarters.   

There will also be scrutiny of Cole’s motives. While expressing disdain for both parties, some of Cole’s interview statements might be interpreted as sympathetic with the pro-Trump protesters, which could help substantiate a Jan. 6 nexus: 

The defendant felt that “the people up top,” including “people on both sides, public figures,” should not “ignore[e] people’s grievances” or call them “conspiracy theorists,” “bad people,” “Nazis,” or “fascists.” Instead, “if people feel that their votes are like just being thrown away, then . . . at the very least someone should address it.”

Perhaps significantly, in his order directing that Cole continue to be detained, US Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh himself linked Cole’s alleged crimes to Jan. 6: 

The specific circumstances by which the offenses are alleged to have been carried out—including the timing and broader context—further amplify their severity. After all, Mr. Cole is charged with placing the two IEDs in the immediate vicinity of the U.S. Capitol the night before U.S. lawmakers were set to gather to certify the results of the 2020 election. Although Mr. Cole, during his post-arrest interview, apparently disclaimed any intent to interfere with that process, the resulting fear and alarm followed all the same—and how could it not?

All that aside, there are some who still think there’s a whole lot more to the tale than has been told, including Rep. Thomas Massie, who has suggested the “autistic” Cole couldn’t have acted alone:   

FBI claims an autistic man they arrested last month, 5 years after J6, is a lone wolf who planned, built, and placed the pipe bombs. They want to wrap up the case and put a bow on it, but I’m not buying it. It doesn’t add up.

latest from @SteveBakerUSA:https://t.co/TDVPoWgamw

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 30, 2025

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

Bulls Remain In Control

The S&P 500’s close at 6,966 on Friday confirmed the market remains in a bullish uptrend, continuing the positive trajectory that began in mid‑2025. Price action this week gained traction and has been tracking the rising bullish trendline from the November lows, printing a new all-time high on Friday. Technical indicators remain bullish and not overbought with a momentum “buy signal” intact. However, weak money flows continue to suggest some caution below the surface.

The price remains above its major moving averages, with the index trading above both the 20-day and 50-day moving averages. This alignment has remained a hallmark of the market since the April 2025 lows, and retracements to those moving averages continue to find buyers.

Notably, market breadth improved early in the week as more stocks participated in the advance, reflecting a broader rally that extended beyond just mega-cap technology names. As noted above, value has gained some traction in recent weeks, and the number of S&P 500 constituents in positive territory has improved. However, despite the broader advance, a divergence remains, with fewer stocks leading the market higher. Divergences like this can signal internal weakening, even as the headline index reaches new highs.

Volatility measures also remain bullish with the VIX and related volatility gauges printing near historically low ranges, indicating that investors are not pricing large near-term swings. Low implied volatility tends to reflect complacency, but also underscores that significant breakouts or breakdowns have less feared market reaction priced in.

Overall, the S&P’s advance this week lacked strong momentum expansion, but the technical support remains intact, and the market’s inability to push convincingly to new highs suggests a battle between profit‑taking and fresh buying remains. This puts emphasis on key support levels, which will be critical for next week’s directional bias.

S&P 500 Technical Levels for Traders

Traders should view the 7,000–7,050 range as a key control zone for the market. If the index closes above this range with expanding volume, it increases the likelihood of continuation toward higher highs. Support at 6,900 is the first significant demand zone; loss of this area would expose the 50‑day average as a deeper test of trend integrity.

💰 Investor Lessons From 2025 For 2026

2025 reminded us of the many investor lessons that matter to surviving markets over the longer term. Some of those investor lessons were painful reminders during the “Liberation Day” sell-off, others were obvious, and some were just reminders of what we already knew. If you want to improve outcomes in 2026, you must absorb these investor lessons and implement them into your portfolio management practices.

Leave The Narratives For The Talking Heads

In 2025, numerous headlines predicted that interest rates would rise sharply, the “death of the dollar” was imminent, and tariffs would send inflation skyrocketing. None of those things happened, and Treasury bonds delivered positive returns for the year, with the broad index total return at approximately 7.08%. Given that bonds are often considered a“safe haven” during market turmoil, the investor lesson for 2026 is not to dismiss bonds as a risk diversifier when volatility arises.

Such is particularly the case in 2026 as we enter the year with very elevated valuations and expectations, and a record level of short positioning against the 20+ Year Treasury Bonds ETF (TLT). The short position against Treasuries is most favored by arbitrageurs and hedgers, rather than long-term bets on rates. As Mark Hulbert for MarketWatch recently noted:

“Contrarian investors now believe bonds may outperform both stocks and gold because sentiment toward bonds is unusually pessimistic while optimism for stocks and gold is near historical highs, and history shows markets often rally after extreme pessimism and struggle after peak optimism, suggesting bonds could be a better bet in the months ahead despite strong 2025 performance in stocks and gold.”

As such, if Mark is correct, then any reversal that pushes money into safe-haven investments could cause an outsized move in yields, ie, higher bond prices, as short positioning is forced to cover. In other words, the odds favor the possibility that the consensus bets and narratives of 2025 could be out of favor in 2026.

Volatility Is Not Risk

Another valuable investor lesson in 2026 will be remembering that “risk” and “volatility” are not the same thing. Many investors equate volatility with risk, and as such, they panic sell at the first sign of a drop. Daily or even weekly market swings are not necessarily danger signs, as volatility is a normal part of the market cycle.

For example, 2025 experienced volatility, with stocks fluctuating up and down several times throughout the year. There were several spikes in the volatility index that had the “bears’ running for cover, proclaiming “AI was dead.” However, by the end of 2025, companies with strong earnings and solid cash flow held their value over time.

Risk is the permanent loss of capital. Volatility is price movement. While risk is certainly a byproduct of investing, the investor lesson for 2026 is to remember to hold quality assets, focus on fundamentals, and remember that volatility is the price of admission.

Cash Has Value

One of the worst narratives of 2025 was that “cash is trash.” The mistaken assumption was that investors buried their cash in the backyard, when in reality the majority of individuals have the cash in either higher-yielding money markets or invested in the asset markets. In either case, the rate of return on that cash exceeded the current U.S. inflation rate, protecting their purchasing power.

The investor lesson from 2025, and will remain in 2026, is that when markets do encounter periods of volatility, cash gives you options. Holding a higher level of cash in an uncertain environment hedges the portfolio against volatility, so investors are less likely to be forced into selling. Cash also provides “opportunity” by having purchasing power during market declines. As we discussed:

“Investors never face a choice of solely one investment over another. Instead, the goal is to invest in the correct asset at the correct time. When one is unsure, cash is a natural hedge against uncertainty. As many great investors throughout history state in one form or another: “The goal of investing is not only the ‘return ON my principal’ but also ensuring the ‘return OF my principal.’”

If I ignore the relevant risk, the outcome is that I will fall short of my financial goals. Importantly, I am not talking about being 100% in cash. Instead, I am suggesting that during periods of uncertainty, cash provides both stability and opportunity. Yes, cash will lose purchasing power over the holding period, but equities can lose a lot more when “fast risk” happens.

With the fundamental and economic backdrop becoming much more hostile toward investors in the intermediate term, understanding the value of cash as a “hedge” against loss becomes more important. Given the length of the current market advance, deteriorating internals, high valuations, and weak economic backdrop, reviewing cash as an asset class in your allocation may make some sense.”

In 2026, just as in 2025, you must allocate cash strategically. Cash is not dead money; it provides optionality, and you should consider holding enough to cover needs and seize opportunities.

Earnings Drive Long-Term Returns

Investors chased momentum in 2025, buying low-quality companies with no earnings. In most cases, many of those investments have or will go bad, as earnings always matter in the end. The investor lesson for 2026 is that your focus must be on earnings growth and stability. Yes, price matters, but only in the short term. Ultimately, the market will track the annual rate of change in earnings.

Of course, earnings are the “E” when considering valuations (P/E). With valuations elevated and forward returns expected to be lower, current expectations for another year of escalating earnings should likely be tempered.

Furthermore, given the overall sensitivity of earnings to economic growth, any slowdown in economic activity or employment in 2026 could become more problematic. With valuations and confidence elevated, investors should consider rebalancing portfolio risk to hedge against potential disappointment.

Your Plan Must Survive Stress

In 2025, many investors had plans until stress hit. Those plans changed rapidly when volatility unexpectedly struck in “all the wrong places.”

A notable example was the risk we repeatedly warned about in the options market, as reported by Morningstar:

“The options trader known as “Captain Condor” and his acolytes experienced a wipeout last week that incinerated tens of millions of dollars and cost some investors their life savings.

A strategy that had reliably produced winnings for the trader – whose real name is David Chau – and his group of roughly 1,000 investors went awry just before Christmas, saddling them with what was, by one count, a $50 million loss.

The fatal flaw – what finally caused Chau and his crew to lose most or all of their trading capital – was his use of the Martingale betting system. In the Martingale system, the bettor doubles down after each loss, hoping to recoup their money and then some. After a streak of mounting losses, Chau and his followers risked it all on Christmas Eve and saw the last of their capital wiped out as the S&P 500 SPX tallied a record closing high.

Some members of Chau’s group lost hundreds of thousands of dollars – most of their life savings – according to account statements reviewed by MarketWatch. One member launched a GoFundMe page soliciting donations to help cover basic living expenses.

While this is just one story among many, the investor lesson for 2026 is that whatever your investment plan is, it must include rules for buying, selling, risk control, and, most crucially, the protection of your investment capital.

The reason is simple: If you lose all of your capital, you are out of the game.

The investor lesson for this year is to test your plan against bad scenarios. Testing your plan against adverse outcomes will allow you to survive volatility without panic. Ultimately, a plan fosters discipline, and discipline safeguards capital.

Rebalancing Works

Most investors treat rebalancing like flossing. In other words, they know they should do it, but they wait until something hurts. For example, in 2025, those who adhered to a disciplined rebalancing strategy achieved stronger returns and lower risk than those who didn’t. The problem is that avoiding rebalancing leads to an unbalanced, or lopsided, portfolio that becomes systemically exposed to sharp corrections.

Rebalancing is a simple and painless process. When one part of your portfolio grows faster than others, it becomes too large a share of your total. That shift subtly changes your risk exposure without your consent. The investor lesson is not to let “greed” override the rebalancing process. When tech stocks surge, it becomes easy to “let it ride,” hoping they will become an even larger position in the portfolio. However, as noted above, the risk is that it becomes a concentrated bet. Concentrated bets work great as long as markets are rising, but eventually they will revert.

In 2025, tech surged early, then corrected sharply, and then soared again into the year-end before stalling. Those who rebalanced sold some of those gains in March, bought them back in April, and trimmed again as the year wrapped up. That shift added performance, reduced portfolio volatility, and enabled investors to navigate market volatility without panic. Rebalancing is not about guessing what wins next. It’s about managing risk while buying what’s undervalued and trimming what’s overextended.

How you rebalance your portfolio is up to you, but you do need rules to follow. Some rebalance on a regular schedule (monthly, quarterly or semiannually). We prefer thresholds such as when a position grows to represent more than 5% of the portfolio value, or is significantly larger than its target weight in the portfolio.

Most importantly, the investor lesson is that rebalancing works because it imposes discipline. It forces you to sell high and buy low. In 2026, that discipline will likely matter again as the market will tend to surprise you.

Key Catalysts Next Week

U.S. financial markets enter the second full week of January with a spotlight on inflation, producer costs, labor trends, and Federal Reserve guidance. Data flow is expected to pick up after the December jobs report, released last Friday, showed weaker payroll gains and raised renewed questions about the health of the labor market. Markets are weighing whether slower hiring reduces inflationary pressures or signals broader economic weakness. Recent labor data underscore a cooling of job growth and elevated uncertainty surrounding future Fed policy.

Economic releases this week will influence expectations for interest rates, corporate earnings forecasts, and risk assets. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the Producer Price Index (PPI) are among the most market‑sensitive releases. CPI will gauge whether consumer inflation is decelerating enough to influence the Fed’s pace of future rate adjustments. PPI will offer insight into the underlying cost pressures facing businesses. The Beige Book from the Federal Reserve will provide narrative detail on regional economic activity and pricing trends ahead of the late‑January FOMC meeting on the 27th and 28th. Market participants will parse this report for signs of tightening or easing conditions across the economy.

The overall market direction this week will hinge on whether inflation measures indicate a durable downtrend or a stubborn rebound. Any surprises in CPI, PPI, or labor indicators will drive volatility in equities, rates, and the U.S. dollar.

Thinking Ahead

As we head into 2026, the investor lessons outlined above will be crucial for navigating the market. Most notably, the mindset of investors must shift from forecasting or hoping for higher market returns to focusing on risk management. Markets are unpredictable, and as such, most predictions in 2025 fell short, even from seasoned professionals. That’s not a flaw in the market; it’s a flaw in overconfidence. You cannot control outcomes, but you can control your approach.

That starts with a margin of safety. Every investment should be made below fair value, with a cushion for mistakes, downturns, or bad luck. While investors escaped with overpaying in 2025, the question is whether they will be as lucky in 2026. Maybe they will, but the odds are increasing they won’t. Therefore, holding cash reserves, avoiding leverage, and prioritizing capital protection over chasing gains will be a winning formula.

Furthermore, you must be honest about your time horizon. Many investors claim to be long-term but will bail out at the first drawdown. Long-term investing means enduring volatility without flinching. If you lack the skill and systems to trade short-term, stop pretending. Focus on quality assets, reasonable prices, and a strategy you can live with in good times and bad.

Lastly, remember that the market punishes arrogance and rewards discipline. The pain of 2025 wasn’t random; it was a reminder. If you lost money, those losses came with a lesson. Don’t ignore it. In 2026, stay humble. Follow your rules, know your risks, protect your capital, and stick to fundamentals.

The reality is that the market will shift again; it is only a function of time. Therefore, your job is to stay ready, not reactive.

The left’s ability to rapidly stage highly organized ‘pop-up’ protests in response to just about any political incident is uncanny (remember Robert Creamer? “Wherever Trump and Pence are going to be, we have events, we have a whole team across the country that does that.“). Often, organic protests that average Americans have every right to engage in (even if we disagree) are co-opted and amplified by ‘organizers,’ and blessed by the media, which runs damage control when needed (‘mostly peaceful!’). Other times they orchestrate entirely scripted ‘astroturf’ campaigns to manufacture outrage.

The common denominator always seems to be dark-money NGOs, often funded by foreigners who would relish America’s demise so they can rebuild it in their image. Chaos, collapse, control. 

We’re witnessing this in real time, as the left’s protest-industrial-complex predictably fired up the in multiple blue cities hours after an ICE agent shot a “ICE Watch” activist in Minneapolis. And now we’re seeing mobs hunting down federal agents. 

As regular readers know, we’ve spent much of the past year tracking dark money NGO networks fueling the Democratic Party’s pressure campaigns – what we characterize as color revolution-style operations targeting President Trump and the America First agenda. Those constant protests, and even riots, link back to left-wing billionaires and NGO networks in the US, Europe, the Americas, and even China, all seemingly working in unison and hellbent on fomenting chaos on city streets to kill Trump’s agenda.

Enter Bessent

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent sat down with journalist Christopher Rufo this past week. Among the topics discussed were left-wing nonprofits, with Bessent acknowledging that “we are examining” NGO activities and funding structures…

Here’s the key snippet from the Rufo-Bessent conversation that is likely to keep dark-money-funded nonprofits up at night:

Christopher Rufo:

There are 501(c)(3) nonprofit groups that [are] funded by left-wing dark money, that are organizing—or at least at arm’s length encouraging—criminal activities. Criminal protests. Criminal obstruction of federal officers, including ICE agents. Is the Treasury looking into this? Is it something you have authority to crack down on, and what can we expect?

Scott Bessent:

Yes, yes, and yes. So these groups that are engaging in this—we have the authority, and we are examining them. Because when you see these protesters, someone is financing them. There are safe houses. When you see the 300 people with the same laser that they’re using to blind DHS agents in courthouses in Portland, someone bought those lasers.

And again, what we do is follow the money—just like we followed it with the mafia, just like we follow it. We’ll find out who’s done this.

I announced today that we are going to put in effect a whistleblower program. And my sense is that the rats will turn on each other.

As I believe you reported—or someone talked about in a roundtable—one of the Somali fraudsters tried to bribe a juror with $120,000. What turned out, she’d been given $200,000 to bribe the jurors, and she skimmed. It’s like the scorpion—it’s in their nature.

EXCLUSIVE: Treasury ⁦@SecScottBessent⁩ tells me that the Trump Administration will launch investigations into left-wing nonprofits that serve as a front for violent protests and criminal obstruction of ICE operations. It’s time to stop left-wing terrorism in America. pic.twitter.com/roorsk4XLA

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@christopherrufo) January 9, 2026

Let’s revisit Seamus Bruner, Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute, who mainstreamed the NGO debate nationwide by briefing President Trump at the Antifa Roundtable last fall.

✊🏻Indivisible Project as a Protest Vehicle: Indivisible, the official organizer of the “No Kings” protests, received $14.06 million in contributions in 2023 alone, including from dark money intermediaries like Arabella’s Sixteen Thirty Fund and billionaire donors. pic.twitter.com/gNnphNVUH6

— Seamus Bruner (@seamusbruner) June 13, 2025

“We have identified dozens of radical organizations, not just the decentralized Antifa organizations, but dozens of radical organizations that have received more than $100 million from the Riot Inc investors,” Bruner told the president.

Way more than $100M of US taxpayer money

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 8, 2025

Bruner, along with Peter Schweizer, has been following the money for years, with their latest NGO-tracking data showing nonprofits funding protests and riots nationwide.

Bruner commented on Bessent’s interview… 

🐀 Totally agree with @SecScottBessent — “R.A.T.S.” stands for Rockefeller, Arabella, Tides, and Soros (and their ilk). Follow the money!! 💰 https://t.co/2TLEdhR5GM

— Seamus Bruner (@seamusbruner) January 10, 2026

Bruner told us, “Treasury’s crackdown on radical left NGOs is the direct payoff from Zero Hedge reporting and the October White House roundtable exposing Antifa and the dark money machine behind the protest industrial complex. From Soros’s slush funds to the Arabella and Tides radical funding networks, the Trump administration is finally following the billions fueling the chaos and obstruction of ‘Riot, Inc.’ Time to drain the swamp of these nonprofit nihilists and tax-exempt terror pipelines.”

Via Schweizer’s reporting… 

Also, Capital Research Center, a think tank tracking foundations, charities, and other nonprofits, recently revealed that George Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) empire has funneled over $80 million into groups linked to terrorism or extremist violence.

Hiding beneath the nonprofit world are left-wing activist networks pushing what we describe as an “invisible insurrection.”

Now that Bessent is examining these revolutionary networks, the lingering question is whether some of these household-name billionaires’ foundations, which have funded riots and protests, will finally be held accountable for underwriting years of chaos on city streets.

The administration should take retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s advice …

General Flynn Calls For National Address From Trump On Color Revolution Threat https://t.co/5aSdpnc7ZI

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) November 27, 2025

2026 is shaping up to be a volatile year. Protests in Minneapolis are just the appetizer for what the Democratic Party wants to unleash. As we’ve warned earlier, they are seeking another ‘George Floyd’-type riot.