Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

If you are having a really difficult time keeping up with the rapidly rising cost of living, you are certainly not alone.  This year, “affordability” was a buzzword that was constantly on the lips of politicians, economists and talking heads on television.  As you will see below, Americans are being slammed by rising prices from a multitude of directions.  Meanwhile, “layoffs” has been another buzzword that has been widely used in 2025.  Thanks to the rise of AI and our steadily deteriorating economy, we have seen far more mass layoffs this year than we did last year.  Unfortunately, one survey has found that executives are gearing up for an even larger round in 2026.

This is what happens when you flood the system with money and you go into unprecedented amounts of debt.

Eventually a day of reckoning arrives.

Ever since the Great Recession, our leaders have been pursuing highly inflationary policies, and now the American people “are yelling about affordability”…

Affordability has been a source of household frustration and a key focus of political discourse in recent months, as prices for everyday goods and services continue to rise.

“People are yelling about affordability,” said Martha Gimbel, executive director and co-founder of the Budget Lab at Yale University. “I think it’s very obviously become a political flash point,” she said.

It wasn’t a foregone conclusion that things would turn out this way.

If we had made different choices, we would have gotten different results.

But we can’t go back and change the past now.  At this point, things are so bad that “affordability” has become the number one concern for U.S. voters…

A University of Michigan poll published in December shows that high prices remain a pain point for consumers. About 46% blame high prices for poor personal finances — among the highest shares since the series started in the late 1970s.

Consumers’ views of their current financial situation in December “collapsed” into negative territory for the first time since July 2022, the month after pandemic-era inflation had peaked, according to a poll published Tuesday by the Conference Board.

Overall, 65% of U.S. households say the cost of living has gotten worse or much worse in the past year, according to a recent Politico poll.

Healthcare costs have risen particularly rapidly.

One 62-year-old man that was recently interviewed by Business Insider openly admitted that he cannot afford to get sick, but he can’t afford to be healthy either…

David Deal’s 2026 outlook is what he describes as a “whack-a-mole of worry.” While he’s 62 and presumably approaching retirement, 65 is “just a number” for him, not a milestone marker for throwing in the towel on his career like his parents’ generation. The thing that really has him wound up, though, is healthcare, which he calls a “DEFCON 1” situation. Deal, a marketing consultant who lives in the Chicago suburbs, and his wife pay for their own insurance, and their premiums are going up by 25% next year. He’s worried one slip on the ice this winter could mean financial disaster. A family member’s recent two-hour trip to the ER cost them thousands of dollars, even with insurance, and the episode has him spooked.

“For me, it’s the double-whammy of skyrocketing premiums and also the skyrocketing costs of actually getting care,” he says. “We are literally at a point where we can’t afford to be sick, and we can’t afford to be healthy.”

He emphasizes that he means a collective “we” — he knows he’s far from alone in his predicament.

Health insurance premiums are set to rise even higher in 2026, and many Americans are cancelling their policies as a result.

When you don’t have health insurance, you just pray that you don’t get sick.

If you do get sick, it can be a financial disaster.

Meanwhile, one recent survey discovered that 75 percent of Americans have “reduced spending in other areas” just so that they can afford to pay for their groceries…

But whatever their preferences, many shoppers still fretted about how to pay for their groceries. More than 2 in 3 respondents (67.6%) said that they’re struggling to pay grocery bills because of inflation and rising food prices, according to a survey by Swiftly, which provides digital and media solutions for brick-and-mortar supermarkets.

More than 3 out of 4 (75.2%) responded that they’ve reduced spending in other areas to afford groceries, and in a follow-up question selected what areas they’ve cut spending in the most to pay grocery bills, with entertainment spending the most likely to be cut, followed by spending on travel, clothing, and going out to eat or drink.

Government bureaucrats keep telling us that food prices are not going up very quickly.

But everyone can see that they are wrong.

And going out to eat has become a luxury that most of the population simply cannot afford on a regular basis.  As a result, restaurants are closing down at a staggering pace…

New data shows that 2025 was a record year for restaurant closures in the District.

The Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) reports 92 restaurants closed their doors this year, compared to 73 closures in 2024 and 48 in 2022.

Purchasing a new vehicle has also become a luxury that most of the population simply cannot afford any longer.

Since the early days of the pandemic, the average price of a new vehicle has gone from less than $38,000 to more than $50,000…

Americans are shelling out record car payments — and now some are signing up for loans stretching nearly a decade to get a new set of wheels.

The average monthly payment for a new car hit about $760 in November, according to industry-research firm J.D. Power, after the typical new-vehicle price surged past the $50,000 mark this fall — up from less than $38,000 in early 2020.

With sticker shock everywhere, buyers are leaning hard on longer financing to keep payments from exploding — even if that means paying far more interest over time.

Some dealers are now stretching out vehicle payments for 100 months so that people can actually afford them.

To me, that is absolutely insane.

But this is the economic system that we live in now.

It is designed to get us into as much debt as possible, and at this stage U.S. households are a whopping 18.6 trillion dollars in debt…

The Federal Reserve signaled a higher bar for 2026 interest rate cuts at its December meeting, potentially snatching away a much-needed reprieve for millions of Americans saddled with debt.

Household debt ballooned to a record $18.6 trillion during the third quarter of 2025, and the central bank is expected to lower its benchmark rate just once or twice next year to soften borrowing costs.

Americans have never been more overextended than they are right now.

It was another record year for credit card debt during the holiday season, but vast numbers of our fellow citizens are still paying off credit card debt from Christmas 2024.

Getting deep into debt in this very challenging economic environment is very foolish, because most people do not have jobs that are secure.

In fact, job security is now the number two concern for U.S. voters…

Job security rose to workers’ second-most pressing concern this year, after covering their monthly expenses, according to a new survey by Mercer.

While “covering monthly expenses” had been the leading concern for the past three annual surveys, fears around job loss jumped from seventh place in 2023 to second place in 2025, where it was tied with being able to retire and work-life balance. Mercer did not conduct this survey in 2024.

Throughout this year, I have documented so many of the mass layoffs that have been occurring all over the nation.

For example, Tyson Foods has announced that a beef processing facility in Lexington, Nebraska will be shut down permanently next month, and that means that approximately 3,200 workers will be losing their jobs.

A reporter that visited Lexington discovered that fear of what those layoffs would mean had gripped the entire area…

On a frigid day after Mass at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in rural Nebraska, worshipers shuffled into the basement and sat on folding chairs, their faces barely masking the fear gripping their town.

There are only about 11,000 people living in Lexington, and so these layoffs have the potential to turn it into a ghost town…

“Suddenly they tell us that there’s no more work. Your world closes in on you,” Alejandra Gutierrez said

She and the others work at Tyson Foods’ beef plant and are among the 3,200 people who will lose their jobs when Lexington’s biggest employer closes the plant next month after more than two decades of operation.

Hundreds of families may be forced to pack up and leave the town of 11,000, heading east to Omaha or Iowa, or south to the meatpacking towns of Kansas or beyond, causing spinoff layoffs in Lexington’s restaurants, barbershops, grocers, convenience stores and taco trucks.

There are so many other examples that I could share with you.

In Michigan, the closure of a facility in Detroit will mean that more than a thousand General Motors employees will be out of work starting on January 5th…

According to WARN Act notices filed in November, 1,140 General Motors employees will be let go from the company’s Factory Zero site in Detroit, Michigan on January 5.

In a filing with the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity, General Motors said the cuts would be permanent, affect several roles, and stemmed from adjustments related to the slower-than-expected adoption of electric vehicles.

Sadly, this is just the beginning.

According to one recent survey, over one-third of all large companies intend to slash their payrolls during the months ahead…

In November, executive search firm Spencer Stuart asked 90 chief marketing officers how aggressively they plan to use AI to shrink payrolls, the Wall Street Journal reported.

More than one in three executives said that they expect to hand out pink slips in the next 12 to 24 months as they deploy more computer agents.

The trend is even worse among bigger companies.

Nearly half the executives at firms worth more than $20 billion said they’re planning significant job cuts.

If this survey is accurate, we could see millions of layoffs over the next couple of years.

Just think about that.

We were warned that this was going to happen.

Now it is playing out right in front of our eyes.

And survey after survey is indicating that the American people are quite gloomy about where economic conditions are heading next…

Americans are ending 2025 significantly more pessimistic about the direction of their financial situations than they were at the start of the year, according to the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment gauge from early December. Its reading on personal finance expectations is 12% below where it was at the beginning of the year. A November consumer survey from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York similarly found that people are increasingly gloomy about their current and future finances, and their expectations for increased medical care costs are at their highest levels since January 2014.

If you understand what is happening, that will help you to make better decisions.

When conditions get tough, those that are wise tighten things up.

Sadly, most of the population continues to party as if tomorrow will never come, but no matter how hard one may try it is impossible to stop the inexorable march of time.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Starbucks is quietly shrinking its physical footprint in some of the nation’s largest cities, signaling a major shift for a brand that spent decades in near-constant expansion, according to WSMV. The company intends to eliminate about 400 US locations, with the heaviest impact in major metro areas. Closures are already underway — New York City alone has lost 42 stores.

Company leaders say the move reflects changing consumer patterns and a tougher business environment. Urban markets are saturated with competitors, foot traffic has not fully recovered as remote work remains common, and operating costs continue to climb. Going forward, Starbucks plans to concentrate on a smaller number of higher-performing locations and introduce new store formats beginning in 2026.

A Starbucks spokesperson confirmed the strategy to WSMV in an emailed statement: “Starbucks regularly evaluates our portfolio of coffeehouses to make sure that we are meeting the needs of our customers. Opening and closing stores is a standard part of our business, and we don’t have additional news in the US or elsewhere to share.”

The company has not released a full list of affected locations.

The retrenchment follows earlier staffing reductions. Over the past two years, Starbucks has trimmed corporate and support roles as part of ongoing cost controls, while also restructuring some operations teams tied to store management. Those job cuts marked a shift away from the rapid hiring of the post-pandemic boom.

More broadly, workforce reductions have become a defining feature of the 2025 economy. Companies across technology, retail, finance and media have announced layoffs amid slowing growth, persistent inflation pressures, automation investments and evolving workplace models.

The trend underscores how many major employers are recalibrating after years of aggressive expansion.

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the White House cannot lapse its funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a watchdog that has long drawn the ire of congressional Republicans.

In a ruling, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson wrote that the CFPB should continue to receive its funding from the Federal Reserve despite the central bank operating at a loss. The Trump administration has argued that the CFPB should be dissolved because how it gets its funds is invalid.

The CFPB has largely been inoperable since President Donald Trump was sworn into office nearly a year ago. Its employees are mostly forbidden from doing any work, and most of the bureau’s operations this year have been to unwind the work it did under President Joe Biden and even under Trump’s first term.

The head of the White House’s budget office, Russell Vought, is currently the acting head of the CFPB. The White House earlier this year issued a “reduction in force” for the CFPB, which would have furloughed or laid off much of the bureau.

In November, the Trump administration’s attorneys said in a court filing that a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo had concluded there were no legally available funds at the Federal Reserve for the CFPB to request.

The memo, which was issued by the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel, stated that “if the Federal Reserve has no profits, it cannot transfer money to the CFPB.”

“Because the only lawful source of funding from the Federal Reserve has dried up,” the memo added, “the proper method for obtaining additional funds is to request them from Congress pursuant to the Appropriations Clause, not to draw funds from the Federal Reserve without a congressional appropriation.”

The White House has also said that the CFPB cannot lawfully draw funds to fund its operations from the Fed if the Fed does not have “combined earnings” to allocate to the bureau. Without additional funds, the CFPB is expected to deplete its operating funds completely in January.

But in her order, Jackson wrote that the government “manufactured” arguments to allow for a lapse in funding for the CFPB.

“Neither the statute, the injunction, nor the Fed’s willingness to pay has changed; the only new circumstance is the administration’s determination to eliminate an agency created by Congress with the stroke of pen, even while the matter is before the Court of Appeals,” she wrote in her order.

Jackson wrote that “it appears that defendants’ new understanding of ‘combined earnings’ is an unsupported and transparent attempt to starve the CPFB of funding and yet another attempt to achieve the very end the Court’s injunction was put in place to prevent.”

Earlier this year, Jackson ruled the Trump administration could not dismantle the agency, which had been an early target of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force that was established under Trump to root out fraud and waste in the federal government.

This month, around two dozen Democrat-led states filed a lawsuit against the White House and Vought in a bid to prevent the administration from withholding funds to the agency. They argued that the move would reduce financial protections for ordinary Americans.

Republicans have long criticized the CPFB for what they say are the agency’s decisions to pursue politicized and radical tactics to target financial institutions.

One significant theme which emerged over the course of the last year of the Russia-Ukraine war is greater Ukrainian effectiveness in striking Russian territory, sometimes even distant targets many hundreds of miles away.

On a regular basis at this point, oil and gas infrastructure and refineries are blown up, export terminals damaged, and even military bases and government buildings come under attack. President Vladimir Putin is taking fresh action, on Tuesday having signed a decree granting the military authority to call up members of Russia’s mobilization reserve next year.

The new injections in troops expected for 2026 will feature “special” training assemblies focused on securing and guarding critical infrastructure.

This as Gazprom’s gas exports are falling to decades-lows, also amid far-reaching Western sanctions:

Russia’s Gazprom cut gas supplies to Europe by a further 44% in 2025, reducing flows to 18 billion cubic meters (bcm), Reuters reported Tuesday. Reuters’ calculations were based on data from the TurkStream pipeline, now the only remaining route for Russian gas deliveries to Europe.

The volumes mark the lowest level of Russian gas exports to Europe since 1973, when the Soviet Union delivered 6.8 bcm under its first supply contracts with Austria and Italy. Exports then rose to 19.3 bcm by 1975 following the launch of the “gas-for-pipes” deal with Germany, climbed to 54.8 bcm by 1980 and reached around 110 bcm by the early 1990s.

As part of the new order, the Kremlin will compile a list of facilities that require protection, while the Defense Ministry will determine which military units will be responsible for carrying out the new protection of assets and training.

At times, Moscow has even come under threat, grounding commercial planes, and this week the government has alleged a major Ukrainian drone attack which targeted one of Putin’s official residences – though all drones were intercepted by air defenses.

Ukraine has vehemently denied that it targeted Putin’s residence, but this still hasn’t stopped Putin from getting sympathetic statements from world leaders, such as President Trump and Indian leader Narendra Modi.

Russia’s mobilization reserve is made up of volunteers who have signed contracts agreeing to periodic service, but the Kremlin has been slow to tap these manpower sources, also given Putin has still not declared a legal ‘state of war’ in Ukraine. 

Instead, it remains at the level of ‘special military operation’ – but in November Putin approved legislation broadening the conditions under which reservists can be used.

Now they can be called up even in peacetime, but only for ‘special assemblies’ and other security-related concerns, such as protecting the homeland from sabotage or drones.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Yale has finally achieved liberal nirvana.

According to a recent report from the Buckley Institute, there is now not a single Republican found across 27 of 43 departments at Yale University. In a nation roughly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats (with a slight advantage to the GOP), only 3 percent are Republicans across all Yale departments.

In comparison, roughly 83% of faculty are registered Democrats or primarily support Democratic candidates.

The Buckley Institute’s report looked at Yale’s undergraduate departments, as well as its School of Management and Law School.

The report is hardly surprising. In my book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discuss these arguments to justify the current levels of intolerance and orthodoxy in higher education.

As we have discussed for years, universities have been effectively cleansing their ranks of Republicans and conservatives.

Many departments no longer have a single Republican faculty member in this academic echochamber.

A Georgetown study found that only nine percent of law school professors identify as conservative at the top 50 law schools — almost identical to the percentage of Trump voters found in the new poll.

There is little evidence that faculty members are interested in changing this culture or creating greater diversity at schools.  In places like North Carolina State University, a study found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 20 to 1.

Not long ago, I had a debate at Harvard Law School with Professor Randall Kennedy on whether Harvard protects free speech and intellectual diversity.

Kennedy rejected the notion that the elite school should strive to “look more like America.”

It is not just that schools like Harvard “do not look like America,” it does not even look like liberal Massachusetts, which is almost 30 percent Republican.

The Harvard Crimson has documented how the school’s departments have virtually eliminated Republicans. In one study of multiple departments last year, they found that more than 75 percent of the faculty self-identified as “liberal” or “very liberal.”

Only 5 percent identified as “conservative,” and only 0.4% as “very conservative.”

Consider that, according to Gallup, the U.S. population is roughly equally divided among conservatives (36%), moderates (35%), and liberals (26%).

So Harvard has three times the number of liberals as the nation at large, and less than 3% identify as “conservative” rather than 35% nationally.

Among law school faculty who have donated more than $200 to a political party, a breathtaking 91 percent of the Harvard faculty gave to democrats.

The student body exhibits the same biased selection. Harvard Crimson previously found that only 7 percent of incoming students identified as conservative. For the vast majority of liberal faculty and students, Harvard amplifies rather than stifles their viewpoints.

This does not happen randomly. Indeed, if a business reduced the number of women or minorities to less than 5 percent, a court would likely find de facto discrimination.

Again, universities have shown no serious commitment to ideological diversity. Faculty members have little incentive to add dissenting voices to their ranks. Moreover, faculty are now arguing against such ideological diversity. 

Likewise, some sites, such as Above the Law, have supported the exclusion of conservative faculty.  Senior Editor Joe Patrice defended “predominantly liberal faculties” by arguing that hiring a conservative law professor is akin to allowing a believer in geocentrism to teach at a university.

Nothing is likely to change so long as donors continue to blindly fund these programs and ignore the obvious intolerance for opposing views.

For now, most Yale departments have succeeded in creating a safe space for the ideologically intolerant.

Meteorologist Mike Masco has identified what he says could be a very active storm pattern for the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic from around New Year’s Day into mid-January.

“I’ve been deconstructing the pattern this morning, and there are three key features that support an active stretch across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, including the potential for at least two sizable snow events, plus several smaller ones,” Masco wrote on X.

Masco is a meteorologist for New York City-based PIX11 News and focuses on the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

He explained what the active post-New Year pattern could bring on a region-by-region basis:

• West-based negative NAO (Greenland block), shown by the black circle, slows the pattern and reorients the jet stream from southwest to northeast, and at times south to north. This keeps shortwaves and lows closer to the coast. It is not a guaranteed blockbuster, but it keeps inverted troughs and sneaky coastal setups in play, with one possible around New Year’s Day.

• Rockies ridge (critical), shown by the purple box, forces storm energy south of New York City and Philadelphia. Without it, storms track north and turn weaker and wetter. With it, colder tracks and better snow potential are more likely.

• Western Atlantic ridge (underrated), shown by the blue box, helps keep systems near the coast and supports Miller B-type setups, favoring more traditional snowstorms rather than just clippers.

Timing: The pattern sets up around New Year’s Day and lasts into mid-January. There is no locked-in timeline for a major storm yet. A New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day clipper is likely to bring light snow across the region, with redevelopment potential toward Boston.

Here is Masco’s forecast map:

Peak winter is still several weeks away.

Washington, DC’s Heating Degree Days, a weather-based metric used to estimate how much energy is needed to heat buildings, will be above 30-year averages. 

This implies higher NatGas demand, thus higher prices. 

NatGas prices jumped in November and December on cold weather patterns across the US East.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

The financial press reports that people are swarming the coin shops these days, grabbing as much as possible. This is exactly what one would expect given the wild and parabolic increases in the silver price over the last month, moving from $30 to $75 in the period of one year.

Such increases tend to focus the mind and incentivize regular people to join in the fun.

Silver tends toward these wild manias, suffering from neglect for years before taking off out of seemingly nowhere. That said, I did call it in these pages. “Now Is the time for silver,” I wrote in June of 2025.

The wild bull market seems to reflect new levels of demand from AI and solar panels. There is no better conductor of electricity or temperature. Nothing from the lab can come close. There is also the perception that supplies are dwindling. Put it together—supply and demand—and the magic just happens.

If you are among those who are stocking up on coins—not merely calling your broker about silver ETFs—you might take a few minutes to look more carefully at the dates of these coins.

The year was 1965, the great turning point. The last 90 percent silver circulating coins (dimes, quarters, half-dollars) were dated 1964, and everyday “silver coinage” ended with that date for most denominations.

How significant was this? It was huge.

Silver coins were about real money in the hands of real people, not bankers and not politicians. They were a guarantor of freedom, one even mentioned in the U.S. Constitution “No State shall… coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts,” says Article I, Section 10, Clause 1.

The Founders knew the meaning of sound money, and made it a mandatory matter that any state that is part of the great union had to adhere to the silver standard. Much later, all money and coinage power were transferred to the federal government, making the point mute. But then of course the federal government made an enormous error.

Why did this happen? Lyndon Johnson had taken over the Presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Kennedy had hoped to impose a nationwide silver standard as a means of restraining the central bank. After he was killed, the goal was sidelined. The money in our pockets was wrecked. From being made of the real deal, they all eventually became what is known as “baloney sandwich” coins—nothing but tokens.

The rest of the world followed. Why? There is really only one reason. Governments, banks, and corporate finance did not like the restraints imposed by precious metals. It was seen as too costly and restrictive whereas coining mere symbols seemed to be a savings. There was a welfare state to create and fund, plus a big war building in Southeast Asia. In such times, governments need resources that hard money simply does not allow.

Another critical point about these times: this was the turning point in public confidence in government. The assassination of Kennedy was a devastating blow, especially in the way that so few actually ever believed the official story about how and why it happened. Government never recovered its credibility. The destruction of the money was the telltale sign that something had gone seriously wrong.

Confidence in government peaked at 77 percent in 1964 and then began its long slide. It sits at 17 percent today.

Chart source: Pew Research

This is an astonishing and undeniable trend about which few will publicly speculate. The bigger government gets, the more it takes on, the less the public trusts it to do the right thing. This is because the people are not stupid. They follow the evidence of their senses. And keep in mind that the main trends happened long before independent media was hard at work to pull back the curtain on power, as it is today.

Daily we discover more depths of corruption, thanks mostly to independent reporters and scrupulous reporting from The Epoch Times. A video detailing the mind-blowing corruption in Minnesota has reached more than 100 million views, making the legacy media irrelevant by comparison. The COVID period was also another decisive turning point: scientists with power ruled your life in the name of health while taking away the means to obtain health.

The slide can only continue in the future, and it is likely that the only kind of politician who stands a chance of getting elected is one who promises to overthrow the system as it is. This is our lives now, just the way things work in a society of low trust.

The beauty in holding and jangling pre-1965 silver is nostalgia for a time when government was somewhat restrained, corporate finance was built by hard work and real capital, people were highly educated, and freedom itself was baked into our coinage. Plus, silver just feels great in one’s hand, adopting the temperature of the room and the holder as if a magic trick is happening right before you.

I long for the days of real money and probably you do too. And it raises the question: how can we get it back? I wish I had the answer but plenty of people are not waiting for government to make it happen. Much of the demand for silver these days stems from what’s called “safe haven” demand. You just know that even if or when fiat money fails, this silver will still be accepted in payment.

Who doesn’t feel safer and more secure with a few large bags of pre-1965 dimes and quarters on hand? This was the last period in which the United States minted real money as opposed to symbols made of paper and tin. That was more than half a century ago, and public nostalgia for this period of our national life has reached new highs.

Someone just asked me of the chances that government will in the future demand that we all turn in our silver, the same way they did in 1933 for gold. One supposes it is possible, and you can imagine the rationale: industry needs supply to make the AI revolution and the energy transition possible. Certainly they have the power to do so.

That said, how many will comply? In 1933, plenty of people did not assent with the demand to turn in gold and instead found other safe havens for it. The same would be true today for silver. Plus, I seriously doubt that any president or Congress would risk what remains of credibility by undertaking such an action. There would be real risk of revolution.

We aren’t likely going back to a silver standard but people are adopting it in their own lives, even choosing the old-world money over crypto currency certainly over fiat which is only falling in value. Remember that one version of the history of the world dollar comes from the Spanish coin “thaler.” That memory is alive and well in every coin shop in this country, and in the bags of silver you might be accumulating now, just in case.

Since the last FOMC meeting on Dec 10th (which resulted in a more-dovish-than-expected 25bps rate cut along with 3 dissents), precious metals have been the biggest gainers (as the dollar weakened) while crude oil has been a laggard. Stocks small bid, bonds unch…

Source: Bloomberg

Crypto has notably decoupled from gold and stocks…

Source: Bloomberg

Rate-cut odds have risen significantly, most notably March…

Source: Bloomberg

With a very divided Fed having been exposed (the most dissents in 37 years), the outlook is unclear, but the demanding markets are not…

“I joke that the equity market is like a kid in a candy store, braving a sugar high for more policy accommodation, a more dovish Fed — but it doesn’t know what’s good for it,” said Amanda Agati, PNC Asset Management Group’s chief investment officer said on Bloomberg Television on Tuesday.

“The bond market is the adult in the room taking away the last lollipop. It is maybe the first time in observable market history that we’re seeing the market react to the deficit and debt level concern. I think there’s continued upward pressure on long yields, for sure.”

Given the lack of major catalysts and with news flow and trading volumes generally low, investors will focus on the Fed’s release of meeting minutes as the market remains notably more dovish than The Fed’s Dots…

“Markets are looking to the minutes for clearer signals on the Federal Reserve’s policy trajectory in 2026, at a time when year-end liquidity is thin, and price action may be amplified,” Tickmill Group’s Joseph Dahrieh says in a note.

If the minutes lean decisively towards further interest-rate cuts in 2026, this could weigh on the dollar and Treasury yields, he added.

A more balanced or cautious tone about rate cuts could provide near-term support.

“How divided?” and “What about ‘Not QE’?”

So what did The Fed want us to know?

The minutes underscored the deep split on the 19-member policymaking committee over what constitutes the biggest threat to the economy: weak hiring or stubbornly-elevated inflation.

Most officials see additional interest rate cuts as appropriate if inflation declines over time as expected.

Yet, some officials made clear they believe rates should remain on hold “for some time” after the December gathering.

The minutes showed that even some Fed officials who supported the rate cut did so with reservations.

“A few of those who supported lowering the policy rate at this meeting indicated that the decision was finely balanced or that they could have supported keeping the target range unchanged,” the minutes said.

But, that statement suggests the division was not as deep as some have suggested.

The minutes continued to point to considerable differences among policymakers over whether inflation or unemployment posed the greater peril to the US economy.

“Most participants noted that a move toward a more neutral policy stance would help forestall the possibility of a major deterioration in labor market conditions,” the minutes noted.

At the same time, it continued, “several participants pointed to the risk of higher inflation becoming entrenched and suggested that lowering the policy rate further in the context of elevated inflation readings could be misinterpreted as implying diminished policymaker commitment to the 2% inflation objective.”

Finally, the Minutes confirmed that participants judged that reserve balances had “declined to ample levels” – making it appropriate to initiate purchases of shorter-term Treasury securities to maintain an ample supply of reserves over time.

For now, the markets are unmoved by any of this with rate-cut odds unchanged and stocks aggressively going nowhere.

Read the full FOMC Minutes below:

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

The Trump administration plans to distribute between $147 million and $281 million to each U.S. state in 2026 through a widespread rural health program designed to provide better access to medical care in rural areas.

The effort, which is one aspect of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, earmarks $50 billion across five fiscal years, making available $10 billion annually from 2026 to 2030 to all 50 states. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz revealed the plan Monday, underscoring its goal to reverse the trend of long-term declines in rural health metrics while avoiding building out costly new infrastructure.

“This is a massive effort to change the unfortunate reality that has overtaken rural healthcare in America, which is that your ZIP code has started to predict your life expectancy,” Oz told reporters. He said the money will also go toward other pilot projects across the country.

Administration officials said that half the funds will be divided evenly between the states, with the other $25 billion apportioned according to rural healthcare infrastructure, state-led reforms, and application-based proposals. Funds could be reclaimed if states fail to meet benchmarks or neglect their committed reforms.

“The purpose of this $50 billion investment in rural healthcare is not to pay off bills,” Oz said.

“The purpose of this $50 billion investment is to allow us to right-size the system and to deal with the fundamental hindrances of improvement in rural healthcare.”

The announcement comes as rural hospitals have been at the center of Medicaid overhaul discussions.

“We have an unstable market that is causing lots of potential peril to Americans who need our help the most,” Oz told reporters in June.

This rural push aligns with Trump’s fiscal 2026 “skinny budget“ for the Department of Health and Human Services, cutting discretionary spending by 33 percent to $80.4 billion and axing 20,000 jobs.

Those reforms combine multiple agencies into a new Administration for a Healthy America, which integrates rural programs and redirects any savings from the streamlining to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s priorities, including environmental health, mental health services, and chronic disease prevention.

The administration has also highlighted $14 billion in identified Medicaid fraud, waste, and abuse through the Department of Government Efficiency, as highlighted by Oz earlier this year.

“There’s about $14 billion we’ve identified with DOGE, of folks who are duly enrolled wrongly in multiple states for Medicaid,” Oz told Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures” in May.

Complementary measures include agreements with nine pharmaceutical firms to cut drug costs and expanded coverage models for select weight-loss medications in a bid to help rural patients.

A new report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development has found that more than $5 billion in federal rental assistance during fiscal year 2024 went to potentially ineligible recipients, including nearly 30,000 deceased individuals and thousands of non-citizens, according to MSN and the NY Post.

The audit, conducted by HUD’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer, reviewed nearly $50 billion in housing aid and identified $5.8 billion — about 11% — as “questionable.” More than 200,000 tenants were flagged, including 29,715 listed as deceased, 9,472 non-citizens, and 165,393 households receiving payments above local eligibility limits, particularly in large metro areas such as New Orleans. Officials said suspicious payments appeared nationwide, with heavy concentrations in New York, California and Washington, DC.

“A massive abuse of taxpayer dollars not only occurred under President Biden’s watch, but was effectively incentivized by his administration’s failure to implement strong financial controls resulting in billions worth of potential improper payments,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said. “HUD will continue investigating the shocking results and will take appropriate action to hold bad actors accountable.”

The Post writes that the report faults federal directives that pushed funds out quickly “with minimal oversight,” while relying heavily on local housing authorities and contractors to verify eligibility. HUD said it is now reviewing funding for agencies involved and may suspend or revoke payments.

“HUD is implementing processes and procedures to revoke or pause funding as part of its efforts to hold bad actors accountable,” one official said. “Additionally, the Department could make criminal referrals and exercise other enforcement actions once it has confirmed fraud occurred.”

A HUD official also revealed that the department is implementing processes and procedures to revoke or pause funding as part of its accountability efforts. 

HUD disbursed just under $50 billion in federal rental assistance to non-federal entities (i.e., housing authorities, contract administrators, and landlords) during FY 2024, including more than $16 billion in Project-Based Rental Assistance (PBRA) and over $33 billion in Tenant-Based Rental Assistance (TBRA), serving more than four million households. This disbursement of funding design along with complex eligibility and program requirements, increased the risk of payment errors and highlights the necessity for more robust monitoring and verification tools for the rental assistance programs.

The directive from the Biden Administration to push funding out the door with minimal oversight and the design of HUD’s rental assistance programs placed substantial trust and responsibility in these non-federal entities, such as housing authorities, contract administrators, and landlords, to accurately assess tenant eligibility for two of the most complex rental assistance programs. 

The report also accuses the Biden administration of not providing HUD “with effective tools, technology, or access to the evidence necessary to verify whether these entities were properly enforcing the intricate rules governing rental assistance.” 

The findings follow earlier warnings. A 2022 HUD Inspector General audit said the agency “needed significant improvement” in its antifraud systems and lacked clear procedures for reporting suspected fraud.

In February 2024, prosecutors charged 70 current and former New York City Housing Authority employees in what US Attorney Damian Williams called “the largest single-day bribery takedown in the history of the Justice Department,” involving millions in kickbacks and corrupt contracts. NYCHA, which receives billions in HUD funding annually, said: “NYCHA partners with law enforcement to root out the corruption that directly led to the 2024 arrests… Each of the 70 cases brought by DOI has led to a conviction.”

Former HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge and former Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman did not respond to requests for comment.