Nevada Investigates Hundreds Of Potential 'Double Vote' Cases In 2024 Election

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

Nevada’s Secretary of State’s office is investigating more than 300 cases of possible double votes during the 2024 election, according to a recent report released by the office.

Voters head to Allegiant Stadium in Henderson, Nev., to cast their ballots in the presidential election, as well as other races, on Nov. 5, 2024. Jacob Kepler for The Epoch Times

State elections officials received at least 303 complaints about individuals trying to vote twice in the November election, the report found. Each individual who allegedly attempted to vote twice in the election was caught before they cast their second vote.

Five of the cases have been closed, including one that was referred to an unspecified “outside agency,” and the four remaining cases were marked as “civil notice/no violation,” the office said in the March 21 report. The remaining possible cases, 298, are still marked as “open” in the report.

The 303 potential cases represent about 0.02 percent of the ballots cast in the Silver State during last year’s General Election, the office said.

“The Secretary of State’s Office takes every allegation of election integrity violations very seriously and investigates them to the full extent of the law,” the report said.

The office is now working “very closely with the Attorney General’s Office through the investigative process,” the report added. “Once a determination is made regarding the validity of any allegations, a report is prepared and cases are referred to outside investigatory agencies, including the Attorney General’s Office and county District Attorney offices.”

In the report, officials provided examples of double-vote complaints and investigations.

“A father and son with the same name who live in the same household both receive a ballot. The son votes in-person. The father mistakenly fills out his son’s ballot and mails it to his County Clerk or Registrar’s Office,” it said, adding that the registrar or clerk may detect a double vote for the son but doesn’t count the second ballot that was cast.

An investigation is then launched, and the secretary’s office sends a Civil Letter Notice to the father.

“The letter details the situation and outcome of the investigation, with a warning that attempting to vote twice is illegal, however, no intent was found and no further action will be taken unless more information is revealed. All civil notices are tracked by our office to monitor potential future irregularities,” the report said.

It’s not clear whether the example is based on a real-world incident or was one of the cases that were investigated during the 2024 election.

Then-presidential candidate Donald Trump defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris in Nevada by about 46,000 votes, enough to secure the state and its six electoral votes. Trump also won every other speculated battleground state during that contest.

Trump and other Republicans have said they want to bolster election security, including voter ID laws; ensure more secure vote-by-mail procedures, including using paper ballots; and maintain more accurate voter rolls. Since 2020’s contest against Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has said he believes that the election was fraught with fraud that ultimately caused the election to be called in favor of his opponent.

After taking office more than two months ago, Trump has yet to sign an executive order on elections but appeared to preview a forthcoming decision during his first Cabinet meeting this month. Trump said in the meeting that he thinks the United States needs to have an “honest” election system, while making a call to “go back to paper ballots” and have elections be completed in one day.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 18:25

Watch: Carney Says Nothing Off Table As "Era Of Close Ties With US Is Over", But Delays Tariff Retaliation

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave a blistering speech on Thursday, declaring that the era of deep economic, security and military ties with the United States "is over," after President Donald Trump announced steep auto tariffs of 25% on imports into the United States - which could affect an estimated 500,000 jobs in the Canadian auto industry.

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada “won’t back down” from President Donald Trump’s trade war and tariffs on the auto sector.

"We will fight the U.S. tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impacts here in Canada," Carney said during a press conference that took him off the campaign trail ahead of the country's April 28 general election, adding that "Nothing is off the table to defend our workers and our country."

One option would be for Canada to impose excise duties on exports of oil, potash and other commodities - however the Canadian government says they will delay any sort of announcement until they see what the Trump administration does on April 2, Carney told reporters.

Carney called Trump's auto tariffs "unjustified" and said they were in breach of existing trade deals, while also warning Candians that Trump had permanently altered relations to the point that regardless of any future deals, there would be "no turning back."

Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada "won't back down" from President Donald Trump’s trade war and tariffs on the auto sector.

Mark Carney is the former chair of Bloomberg's board of directors https://t.co/SYXhdGMOop pic.twitter.com/j1sPOHSy5a

— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) March 27, 2025

"The old relationship we had with the United States based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation is over," he said, adding that Canada's response to the tariffs "is to fight, is to protect, is to build."

"We will fight the US tariffs with retaliatory trade actions of our own that will have maximum impact in the United States and minimum impacts here in Canada," Carney added.

Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford spoke with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and said Lutnick confirmed to him that Canada won't be hit with an 'immediate' tariff, and that finished vehicles with US parts will face a rate lower than 25%. A car with US parts would instead be subject to a tariff of 12.5%.

Ford told reporters Lutnick did not give him any assurances there would be any easing or softening of the tariffs.

When Ford was asked whether Lutnick knows what Trump is planning to announce April 2, he said. “I think he has an idea.” Then the premier added: “Or maybe he doesn’t. That’s even scarier if he doesn’t. So let’s see what they come forward with on April 2, but we’re prepared, we’re ready.” -Bloomberg

"Americans need us. I told him," said Ford of his call with Lutnick, adding that he's "not sure" if the Trump administration fully understands the North American vehicle supply chain.

"They don’t have the people down there to fill the jobs."

The White house, meanwhile, has reached out to schedule a call with Carney, which he says should happen in the "next day or two," but that while he'll talk to Trump - he will not participate in substantive trade negotiations with Washington until Trump shows Canada "respect," which would include cutting out Trump's repeated threats to annex Canada as America's 51st state.

"For me, there are two conditions, not necessarily for a call, but a negotiation with the United States. First Respect, respect for our sovereignty as a country... apparently it's a lot for him," Carney said, adding "There has to be comprehensive discussion between the two of us, including with respect to our economy and our security."

*  *  *

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Satisfaction guaranteed. If you think it's bullshit, or it just doesn't work for you, simply ask for a refund... Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 18:20

What this means: On a weekly basis, Realtor.com reports the year-over-year change in active inventory and new listings. On a monthly basis, they report total inventory. For February, Realtor.com reported inventory was up 27.5% YoY, but still down 22.9% compared to the 2017 to 2019 same month levels. 
 Now - on a weekly basis - inventory is up 29.2% YoY.

Realtor.com has monthly and weekly data on the existing home market. Here is their weekly report: Weekly Housing Trends View—Data for Week Ending March 22, 2025

• Active inventory climbed 29.2% from a year ago

The number of homes actively for sale remains significantly higher than last year, continuing a 72-week streak of annual gains. This year-over-year inventory growth gives buyers more choices and encourages more competitive pricing among sellers. However, the inventory level is still below pre-pandemic norms, and supply constraints in many markets continue to limit buyer flexibility.

• New listings—a measure of sellers putting homes up for sale—increased 8.2%

New listings were up 8.2% compared with this time last year, marking the 11th straight week of annual growth.

• The median list price was unchanged year-over-year

The national median list price was unchanged from a year ago, continuing a 43-week streak where prices have either remained flat or declined compared with the same time last year. Rather than signaling a turnaround, this stability suggests that prices are holding steady as the market adjusts to higher borrowing costs and a growing number of listings.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in inventory according to realtor.com. 

Inventory was up year-over-year for the 72nd consecutive week.  
New listings have increased recently but remain below typical pre-pandemic levels.
Median prices are mostly unchanged year-over-year.

What IT Security?

Authored by Karl Denninger via Market-Ticker.org,

Oh boy....

President Donald Trump revealed that a staffer with national security advisor Mike Waltz's office included the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic in a Signal group chat with senior Trump officials who were discussing plans for an upcoming strike on Houthi rebels in Yemen.

"It was one of Michael’s people on the phone. A staffer had his number on there," Trump told NBC in a phone interview when asked how Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic's editor-in-chief, was added to the high-profile chat.

Who was the person with zero IT security expertise that had people in the DOD and NatSec part of the government using anything other than their own infrastructure for such things?

There's utterly no reason to ever trust any external system for sensitive information internal to the government.

Ever.

Let's say, for example, I send you an email.  I typically "sign" them.  By doing this the email has included both an attestation that it has not been altered, as otherwise the signature will not validate, and my public key.

Now if your computer has a trust chain to verify that -- and I publish that, by the way (so it can validate that public key is good) then you can now send me an encrypted message.  Once you do so not even you can read it -- only I can, because I'm the only one with the other half of the key.

With me so far?

Now let's say we start up a conversation and we have ten people in there.  I send an encrypted message to all ten. What I actually send is ten messages because each person's public key is different and again, each of them are the only people with the other half of it.  So far so good.  They each get it, they can decode it, but not the copy sent to anyone else -- and since I signed it if that signature verifies they know it hasn't been tampered with in transit.

But in this case, since you care about the integrity of who can be a part of conversations generally, all transmissions go through the government's infrastructure.  The government, incidentally, already has the PKI infrastructure (issuing certificates, attesting to them, etc. -- this is part of, but not all of, how a CAC card works) to do all this.

Thus when you send the message the server -- which is a DOD/NatSec server -- is the machine that processes it.  Because a public key is in fact public it knows who the message is going to (all of the recipients) and whether the DOD/NatSec servers issued the certificates involved and to whom.

The server cannot see the unencrypted contents of the message as only the recipient of each transmission has the private key required to decode it -- but it knows who its going to and their public certificate.  This means it can be set up to look at same and refuse to deliver a message if it is to someone who doesn't have a DOD-issued certificate and, for example, the other people in the communication do; it could either embargo it (after all, there might be circumstances where this is legitimate) or alert someone that something hinky may be going on, throw it in the trash summarily, or some combination.

It can't see the contents, but it can interdict the message before it ever leaves the DOD and identify who transmitted it because the machine that sent it is known.

In other words if you set things up properly, and run them properly, what happened can't happen and if it is attempted, either by accident or malice, not only does it not work the person who did it gets busted if the transmission was not legitimate.

Yeah.

That.

Security of communications is supposed to be important.... right?

So why did CISA, which is an official government agency, recommend Signal specifically when it has no nexus within the government and thus, while it may be end-to-end encrypted (and not full of holes, which I can't speak to since I've never looked at it in sufficient detail to have a valid opinion) it has no means of controlling who is in a chat nor to prevent anyone who might, whether through accident or malice, add someone unauthorized to a new or existing one and there is no means for the participants or organization to which they belong to vet who is in said chat.

You can have the best encryption on the planet -- absolutely impossible to break -- but if there is either someone foolish or malicious it is meaningless exactly as while you can have a fortified home or business if you leave the front door unlocked it matters not.

The entire reason you use a chain of trust and only allow entities known to have been authorized through that chain to be included in any sort of access regime is precisely this.  Humans are both fallible and, from time to time, corrupt.

Either is fatal to a security scheme and thus you must design in and insist on a control process to mitigate that risk.

We do not, at present, know if the breach here was due to stupidity (accident counts) or malice but what we do know is that CISA -- an official government source -- made a recommendation during the last Administration (so no, you can't lay this one on Trump) to use infrastructure for allegedly "secure" communications that lacked any measure of control over human accident or malice in terms of recipient (and group) management.

This incident, beyond the actual person who added (or changed) the recipient so that reporter was in the list, is directly chargeable against CISA and their recommendation.  Since it is their job to put forward such standards for the government this is a fatal failure and every individual involved in that process, no matter how small their involvement, must be both publicly identified and expelled.  As there was apparently no classified data breached as a result of this criminal sanction is not appropriate -- but permanent severance from any government employment now and in the future, along with summary and permanent revocation of any clearance held by said persons is not just advisable -- it is mandatory.

Security is a process, not a product.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 17:40

Some Illegal Immigrants Deported Under Alien Enemies Act Were Returned To US: Filings

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

At least 10 illegal immigrants who were recently deported by U.S. authorities to El Salvador were returned to the United States, according to new court filings.

A deportation flight boards passengers from Panama funded by the United States, in Panama City on Feb. 13, 2025. Telemetro via AP/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

Nine women on one of the planes that landed in El Salvador were kept on board the aircraft and ultimately transported back to America, a Venezuelan national with the initials S.Z.F.R. said in one of the documents that was filed with the federal court in Washington on March 24.

The woman said that after a refueling stop, the plane was said to have landed in El Salvador. The men were led off the plane, but the women were not.

“I was told that the President of El Salvador would not accept women. I was also told that we were going back to detention in the U.S.,” the woman said.

She said that all of the women on the plane were taken to Laredo, Texas, where they had been before departing for El Salvador.

The sworn declaration was entered in a legal case involving the use of the Alien Enemies Act by the Trump administration. After President Donald Trump signed an order declaring an invasion of the United States by the Venezuelan terrorist gang Tren de Aragua, U.S. authorities transported some illegal immigrants suspected of being part of the gang to El Salvador, which entered an agreement with the United States to accept criminal deportees for incarceration.

Venezuelans in immigration custody sued, alleging the proclamation was illegally being used against nationals of a country that is not at war with America.

 U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on March 15 blocked the administration from deporting alleged gang members solely under the Alien Enemies Act. A U.S. official said that two planes were already outside U.S. airspace when the judge’s order was released. A third plane did depart after the order but contained illegal immigrants who had been ordered removed by U.S. judges, the official said.

In a separate declaration, a Nicaraguan male whose name was redacted said he was placed on a plane on March 15 along with others, including Venezuelan and El Salvadoran nationals. He said the plane flew to El Salvador and that he was removed from the aircraft. After he answered questions about his citizenship, he was told to sit on the floor of one of the planes, he said.

“I overheard a Salvadoran official tell an ICE officer that the Salvadoran government would not detain someone from another Central American country because of the conflict it would cause. I also heard him say that they would not receive the females because the prison was not for females, and females were not mentioned in the agreement,” the man said.

The man said he was sent back to Texas, arriving on March 16.

“These declarations are submitted to refute the government’s contention that it was not ‘feasibl[e]’ for the planes to bring anyone back and that this Court did not account for practical considerations like whether the planes ‘had enough fuel’ to turn around,” lawyers for the illegal immigrants told Boasberg.

In a previous motion, government lawyers said the judge incorrectly suggested that a government attorney was able to divert the aircraft carrying the deportees.

“The comment betrayed a complete misunderstanding of the serious national security, safety, regulatory, and logistical problems presented by a fiat from the Court directed at pilots operating outside the United States and was made without regard to whether any such aircraft could feasibly be diverted or even had enough fuel to safely do so,” the government lawyers stated.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say Boasberg should find that the illegal immigrants were illegally removed in violation of his order and that he should order those who were illegally deported to be returned to the United States.

In other developments in the case on Thursday, a federal court heard the Trump administration’s appeal of Boasberg’s order. The administration invoked a state secrets privilege, informing the judge that officials would not provide information about deportees.

Boasberg said on Friday that plaintiffs must respond to the invocation by March 31 if they want to be heard.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 17:00

Appeals Court Halts Judge's Order Requiring Musk To Hand Over DOGE Records

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times,

A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a discovery order from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that would have required Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to turn over documents and respond to written questions about their role in advising cuts in certain parts of the federal government.

In a ruling issued on March 26, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit granted an emergency stay of Chutkan’s March 12 order, which had largely granted limited, expedited discovery to a coalition of 13 Democratic-led states, requiring Musk and DOGE to produce documents and respond to questions within 21 days.

The appeals court ruled that Musk and DOGE had “satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay” and showed that they are likely to prevail in their claim that the lower court must resolve their motion to dismiss before allowing discovery to proceed.

“In particular, petitioners have shown a likelihood of success on their argument that the district court was required to decide their motion to dismiss before allowing discovery,” the three-judge panel wrote in its ruling.

Following the appellate court ruling, Chutkan entered a minute order acknowledging the decision. She has canceled a status hearing previously scheduled for March 27.

The case, brought by New Mexico and a coalition of 12 Democratic-led states, challenges the legality of DOGE’s sweeping cost-cutting efforts, which have included the cancellation of federal grants and mass terminations of government employees from jobs identified by DOGE as unneeded.

The plaintiffs argued in their original complaint that Musk is effectively running DOGE without Senate confirmation, allegedly in violation of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

“Oblivious to the threat this poses to the nation, President Trump has delegated virtually unchecked authority to Mr. Musk without proper legal authorization from Congress and without meaningful supervision of his activities,” the plaintiffs allege. 

“As a result, he has transformed a minor position that was formerly responsible for managing government websites into a designated agent of chaos without limitation and in violation of the separation of powers.”

In a subsequent motion for a temporary restraining order against Musk and DOGE, the states further accused Musk of unlawfully exercising sweeping executive power without Senate confirmation, directing federal agencies to fire employees, cancel contracts, dismantle programs, and access sensitive government data.

In response, government lawyers urged the court to reject the emergency motion. They argued that the states had failed to show any imminent or irreparable harm, and said the restraining order sought was overly broad, legally unsupported, and disconnected from core constitutional claims made by the plaintiffs. Even if Musk were improperly appointed, they argue, sharing data with him or others at DOGE does not, by itself, constitute an illegal exercise of government power. Musk also is not empowered to act without the president’s approval, they said.

Chutkan partially sided with the Democrat-led states on March 12, ordering Musk, DOGE, and related entities to turn over documents about firing federal workers and altering government databases. She also required DOGE to identify everyone who has led or worked at the agency since President Donald Trump took office, and list all agencies where DOGE or Musk canceled contracts, cut grants, or terminated employees.

Trump and Musk have both said that DOGE has been assisting various agencies that have fired or offered buyouts to tens of thousands of federal workers since Trump returned to office on Jan. 20, 2025.

Musk, as a special government employee, has been tasked by Trump to lead DOGE to help fulfill his campaign pledge of reducing waste, streamlining federal operations, and cutting red tape.

The DOGE team has taken quick action to audit and pursue reforms across federal agencies. It recently reported $130 billion in savings through canceled grants, asset sales, workforce reductions, and terminated contracts and leases.

Critics of DOGE have argued that its activities raise security and oversight issues, with a number of lawsuits filed challenging its operations.

Musk recently revealed that the DOGE team has been receiving death threats on a daily basis.

“The DOGE team is getting death threats every single day,” Musk said during a March 24 White House cabinet meeting. “They’re just trying to do the right thing for the American taxpayer and for the American people.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 15:40

A Blueprint For Dismantling The Fed

Authored by Alex Younger via The Mises Institute,

So much has been written about why we should end the Federal Reserve, and with the recent public demand for an audit, the message has finally reached the masses. Hopefully, if such an audit manifests, it will be the first step toward ultimately dismantling the Federal Reserve. (We should start with the extremely shady Bank Term Funding Program). But very little has been written about how to end the Federal Reserve, and that is what I wish to address here.

The How

You may read through my proposed plan and disagree with me on the details. But we must agree on this point: The key objective is to minimize any fluctuations in the current money supply as best we can. This can be done in a delicate manner that might even go unnoticed by the market, outlined in 5 steps:

1. Revoke All Federal Reserve Monetary Policy Privileges

The Federal Reserve should no longer have the ability to directly manipulate the money supply. Repeal the Federal Reserve Act.

2. Lock Down All Debt Assets on the Federal Reserve Balance Sheet

This refers to all assets on the balance sheet with a contractual expiration, such as US Treasuries, mortgage-backed securities, and other loan types. These assets make up roughly 99 percent of the Fed’s balance sheet. Rather than selling them, they should be allowed to expire naturally over the next 30 years—the longest duration of USTs and MBSs. During this period, the Fed may still collect interest payments on these assets and reinvest them to prevent removing those funds from the monetary base.

3. Gradually Sell Off Non-Expiring Assets

Any assets on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet that lack a contractual expiration should be sold off gradually over a period of 1 to 5 years. At present, I have been unable to find a reliable estimate of how much of this asset type exists, but I suspect it is relatively small—possibly less than a billion dollars.

4. The Federal Reserve Becomes a True Private Institution with No Special Legal Privileges

The Federal Reserve should operate as a fully private institution, stripped of any special legal banking privileges. Its only remaining advantages would be its established market position, its role in facilitating bank-to-bank lending, the interest payments from existing assets on its books, and its historical significance. This is far more than it deserves, but the primary objective must be to dismantle its power without triggering economic catastrophe.

5. If the Federal Reserve Cannot Function as a Private Bank

If the Federal Reserve fails to maintain its market position—which is likely, given that it has never truly faced competition—then major banks will need to determine among themselves how to facilitate interbank lending. They may assign central banking functions to other private institutions, operating within the limits of private banking law. Alternatively, the market may simply deem the Federal Reserve obsolete, allowing it to wither away naturally. Either outcome would be entirely acceptable.

The Balance Sheet Details

As of this writing, the Federal Reserve holds $6.8 trillion on its balance sheet. This follows a sharp 25 percent reduction from its previous $8.9 trillion over the past two years—a decrease of $2.1 trillion. In other words, the Fed initially printed $8.9 trillion and used this newly-created money to purchase assets in the market.

What has the Federal Reserve been buying? Primarily US debt. Our financial system functions like an ouroboros, with the Federal Reserve acting as a perpetual buyer of new government debt—funded by printed money. As of this writing, the Fed holds approximately $5 trillion of the national debt and artificially inflates domestic demand for it. Ending the Federal Reserve would severely restrict the government’s ability to create new debt, forcing a fundamental shift in government spending policy:

Fed Balance Sheet Composition

Currently, $4.2 trillion of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet consists of US Treasury bonds (USTs), while another $2.2 trillion is made up of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Together, these two asset classes account for $6.4 trillion, or about 94 percent of the total balance sheet. The remaining 6 percent is a mix of various other debt securities, including corporate debt, federal agency debt, and other loan types, all of which also have contractual expiration dates.

Natural Expiration of Debt Assets

Let’s consider the potential consequences of abandoning current monetary policy and requiring the Federal Reserve to let its debt assets naturally roll off the balance sheet. Debt contracts have expiration dates, meaning that once they reach maturity, they expire worthless and can simply be removed from the balance sheet without active intervention. This approach would gradually shrink the Fed’s holdings over time, reducing its influence on the financial system without the immediate shock of mass asset sales.

Here is a projection of the balance sheet over the next 30 years under this plan:

Projection of Assets Naturally Expiring on Fed Balance Sheet.

The debt expirations are front-loaded, meaning the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet would experience a sharp initial decline before tapering off over time. In the first year, we would see a significant 10 percent reduction, which would gradually level out to a 1.7 percent decrease per year. On average, the decline would be around 3.1 percent annually.

This projection assumes the Fed has purchased debt with an evenly distributed range of expiration dates across different maturity groups, which is likely accurate. In reality, the actual decline would be somewhat more volatile due to variations in the composition of the Fed’s holdings.

Not Quantitative Tightening

The key advantage of this approach is that it differs from traditional quantitative tightening. No funds would be actively removed from banks’ reserves—those reserves would remain at their current levels. Instead, the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet would shrink passively as debt assets naturally expire, avoiding the disruptive liquidity drain that comes with aggressive asset sales.

To fully understand this, a brief crash course in quantitative tightening (QT) is necessary. Admittedly, there is a certain genius to the way Federal Reserve monetary policy operates. When the Fed tightens, it sells assets from its balance sheet to primary dealers (large banks) on the open market. The Federal Reserve essentially functions as a “bank for big banks,” where major US banks store their reserves much like a savings account. These reserves not only remain at the Fed but also earn interest, just like a traditional savings account. This structure allows the Fed to influence liquidity in the financial system without directly impacting the day-to-day operations of commercial banks, making its monetary policy more indirect but highly effective.

When the Fed sells assets to primary dealers, it sells to banks that already have reserve accounts at the Fed. This means the money used to purchase these assets is already parked at the Federal Reserve. When the Fed either sells securities or allows them to mature without reinvesting, two things happen simultaneously: 1) the Fed’s assets decrease as the securities leave its balance sheet; 2) the bank’s reserve account at the Fed decreases by the same amount. These two changes cancel each other out, effectively removing that portion of the monetary base from circulation. This is how quantitative tightening (QT) functions—it contracts the money supply by destroying reserves, rather than directly pulling cash from the economy.

The key difference in my proposed approach is that the Fed would continue receiving interest payments on its remaining assets for the duration of their terms. The most realistic scenario is that these funds will be used to pay interest on reserves held by banks at the Fed, allowing normal banking operations to continue without disruption. However, unless the Fed finds an alternative revenue source, the interest on reserves rate can be expected to gradually decline over the next 30 years as assets roll off the balance sheet. This slow adjustment provides banks with ample time to determine how to manage their reserves in a post-Fed environment.

Inflationary vs. Deflationary Pressures

One likely outcome of this transition would be an increase in business investment by big banks. The interest on reserves paid by the Fed has historically discouraged banks from investing in the open market. From the bank’s perspective, why would I go make a risky investment into some startup, or some business which could hit rough waters and default, when I could just park my assets at the Fed and make a risk-free 4.4 percent? Basically, the Fed has been paying banks to not loan you money.

As the Fed’s ability to pay interest on reserves diminishes over time, banks would have a stronger incentive to deploy their capital elsewhere, likely fueling greater investment in businesses, loans, and other market-driven opportunities. This new pressure on banks to seek better investment opportunities within the first five years of this transition will create an inflationary counterbalance to the deflationary pressure that naturally comes with ending the Fed.

As banks shift their reserves into the market, increased lending and investment could stimulate economic activity, offsetting the contractionary effects of removing the Fed’s artificial demand for debt. This dynamic could help stabilize prices during the transition, preventing a sudden economic shock while still moving toward a more market-driven monetary system.

Conclusion

The ideal outcomes from this arrangement would be the following:

• The Fed loses its extra-legal authority, operating solely as a private institution;

• Direct central planning of interest rates ends, eliminating monetary supply manipulation;

• Minimal fluctuation in the money supply, as bank reserves remain unaffected and the Fed continues receiving interest payments on its debt assets, preventing a liquidity drain;

• Market stability, with little disruption to economic equilibrium;

• Slight dollar appreciation, as the deflationary effects of ending the Fed are counterbalanced by banks investing their reserves;

• No rush for banks to find alternative bank-to-bank lending solutions, ensuring a smooth transition;

• No need to rewrite ACH payment systems, which currently rely on the Federal Reserve;

• Greater urgency in reducing federal debt, as an appreciating currency increases the real debt burden;

• A shift toward more prudent and productive financial behavior, as stronger purchasing power encourages saving and discourages reckless debt accumulation.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 15:00

From STR: U.S. hotel results for week ending 22 March

The U.S. hotel industry reported positive year-over-year comparisons, according to CoStar’s latest data through 22 March. ...

16-22 March 2025 (percentage change from comparable week in 2024):

• Occupancy: 66.0% (+1.0%)
• Average daily rate (ADR): US$165.48 (+1.8%)
• Revenue per available room (RevPAR): US$109.22 (+2.8%)
emphasis added

The following graph shows the seasonal pattern for the hotel occupancy rate using the four-week average.
Click on graph for larger image.

The red line is for 2025, blue is the median, and dashed light blue is for 2024.  Dashed purple is for 2018, the record year for hotel occupancy. 
The 4-week average of the occupancy rate is tracking below last year and is lower than the median rate for the period 2000 through 2024 (Blue).
Note: Y-axis doesn't start at zero to better show the seasonal change.
The 4-week average will mostly move sideways until the summer travel season.  We might see a hit to occupancy during the summer months due to less international tourism.

Judge Declines Trump Admin Request That She Recuse Herself From Perkins Coie Case

Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times,

A federal judge has declined a request by the Trump administration that she remove herself from overseeing a lawsuit challenging an executive action targeting Perkins Coie LLP, accusing the Justice Department of attacking her character in an effort to undermine the integrity of the judicial system.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in a March 26 ruling that a Trump administration filing seeking her recusal was “rife with innuendo” and that none of the claims it put forward “come close to meeting the standard for disqualification.”

“Though this adage is commonplace, and the tactic overused, it is called to mind by defendants’ pending motion to disqualify this Court: ‘When you can’t attack the message, attack the messenger,’” U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell wrote in a March 26 ruling.

President Donald Trump’s action issued on March 6 prevents law firm Perkins Coie from doing business with federal contractors and blocks its lawyers from accessing government officials.

Additionally, it suspends any active security clearances held by individuals at the firm, pending a review of whether such clearances are consistent with the national interest.

Perkins Coie was hired by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2016.

According to the presidential action issued by Trump, the law firm has engaged in “dishonest and dangerous activity” that has affected the United States “for decades.”

The firm sued the administration over the order in federal court in Washington on March 11, alleging Trump’s actions violated its rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Roughly a week after Trump’s executive action was first issued, Howell temporarily blocked the administration from enforcing much of it, finding the law firm was likely to win its lawsuit.

Last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) asked for the case to be moved to another judge in Washington’s federal court, citing Howell’s public comments about the president and her connection with key aspects of the case.

“This Court has not kept its disdain for President Trump secret,” Chad Mizelle, acting associate attorney general at the DOJ, wrote in a motion seeking her disqualification. 

“It has voiced its thoughts loudly—both inside and outside the courtroom.”

Speaking inside the court, Mizelle also pointed to now-former special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump, during which he said that Howell found “reason to believe that the former President would ‘flee from prosecution.’”

The judge also “pierced attorney-client privilege, ordering President Trump’s attorney to testify before a D.C. grand jury” investigating his alleged retention of classified documents in the South Florida case, he said.

Mizelle added that Howell also previously rejected Trump’s view that the indictments against individuals involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol were a “national injustice” and called his supporters “sore losers.”

In her 21-page ruling, Howell wrote that when the DOJ “engages in this rhetorical strategy of ad hominem attack, the stakes become much larger than only the reputation of the targeted federal judge.”

“This strategy is designed to impugn the integrity of the federal judicial system and blame any loss on the decision-maker rather than fallacies in the substantive legal arguments presented,” she added.

The judge said she welcomed the Trump administration’s opportunity “to set the record straight, because facts matter.”

“Every litigating party deserves a fair and impartial hearing to determine both what the material facts are and how the law best applies to those facts,” she wrote. 

“That fundamental promise, however, does not entitle any party—not even those with the power and prestige of the President of the United States or a federal agency—to demand adherence to their own version of the facts and preferred legal outcome.”

“The clear absence of any legitimate basis for disqualification requires denial” of the DOJ’s request that she recuse herself from the case, the judge said.

Howell is set to decide in the coming weeks whether to extend her block on Trump’s order against Perkins Coie.

The Epoch Times has reached out to Perkins Coie for comment.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 14:25

Ugly, Tailing 7Y Auction Sees Lowest Foreign Demand In 3 Years

Moments ago, the Treasury sold the week's final coupon auction and after a stellar stopping through 2Y sale, a mediocre, tailing 5Y, today's 7Y was the ugliest of the lot.

Stopping at a high yield of 4.233%, the auction yielded 0.4bps more than February and also tailed then When Issued 4.227% by 0.06bps; this was the first tail for the 7Y tenor since August 2024.

The bid to cover dropped to 2.534 from 2.638, the lowest since August 2024, and obviously below the six-auction average of 2.69.

But it was the internals there were downright atrocious, as Indirects were awarded only 61.2%, down from 66.1%, and the lowest since March 22! At the same time, Directs jumped to 26.1% (the most since, yes, March 22), which left just 12.7% to Dealers.

Overall, this was the ugliest 7Y auction in years, and while not as catastrophic as the legendary Feb 2021 auction which was, for all intents and purposes, failed, the taste left in investors' mouths after the dismal lack of foreign demand will reverberate for a long time, because it has been a while since we saw such ugly auctions on days when the market is melting down.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 13:28

Department Of Energy Further Postpones Biden-Era Home Appliance Rules

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times,

U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said this week that the Department of Energy (DOE) had further postponed the effective dates for three Biden-era home appliance mandates.

The mandates were previously postponed in February. The department has delayed “effective dates for three home appliance rules: Test Procedures for Central Air Conditioners and Heat Pumps, Efficiency Standards for Walk-In Coolers and Freezers, and Efficiency Standards for Gas Instantaneous Water Heaters,” according to the DOE’s March 24 statement.

The department has also officially withdrawn four conservation standards that applied to ceiling fans, dehumidifiers, external power supplies, and electric motors.

The decision “marks a key step in lowering costs, enhancing performance, and expanding options for American consumers,” the department said.

The Biden-era rule on central air conditioners and heat pumps amended test procedures for these appliances, with manufacturers required to use the new test procedures on their products. The effective date of the rule was Feb. 6.

Regulations on coolers, freezers, and gas water heaters amended energy conservation standards for these appliances, with the updated rules initially set to be effective from Feb. 21, and regulations for gas water heaters initially to be effective from March 11.

At the time, the DOE, under the Biden administration, said that the updates “would result in significant conservation of energy, and are technologically feasible and economically justified.”

In 2023, consumer watchdog Alliance for Consumers calculated the cost of President Joe Biden’s regulations on appliances such as water heaters, air conditioners, gas stoves, and other devices. The watchdog found that these measures would cost the average American household more than $9,100.

In its decision to delay the effective dates of the three home appliance rules, the DOE said it acted in accordance with President Donald Trump’s Jan. 31 executive order “Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation.”

The presidential action aims to “alleviate unnecessary regulatory burdens” and prevent the federal regulation from imposing “massive costs on the lives of millions of Americans.”

Wright said that the DOE is taking “critical steps” to help American families prosper under the Trump administration.

“By removing burdensome regulations put in place by the Biden administration, we are returning freedom of choice to the American people, ensuring consumers can choose the home appliances that work best for their lives and budgets,” Wright said. “This power should not belong to the federal government.”

Tackling Appliance Rules

Republican lawmakers have taken action against the Biden administration’s policies targeting appliances.

In January, the House passed a resolution to repeal energy standards targeting consumer gas-fired instantaneous water heaters. Eleven lawmakers from the Democratic Party joined Republicans in voting for the resolution.

At the time, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that the American people “made it clear they want lower costs and more choices, and we are keeping our promise to undo the damage of the last administration.”

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) supported the resolution, criticizing the new standards for gas water heaters, warning that the rules would push up costs and create “unnecessary challenges,” thus significantly affecting builders and homeowners.

“The push for a shift to more expensive condensing gas water heaters presents substantial hurdles for remodeling and replacement projects, especially in older homes,” the association said in January. “Furthermore, NAHB is concerned that this rule is part of a broader agenda to phase out natural gas appliances, ultimately limiting consumer choice and driving up utility costs.”

DOE also said in February that it was developing a new energy efficiency category for natural gas tankless water heaters.

“Creating a new category for these popular and low-cost water heaters exempts these products from the Biden–Harris Administration’s onerous rules and gives the American people the power to choose the best option for their homes and budgets,” the department said.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 13:05

"Reducing Bureaucratic Sprawl": RFK Jr. Cuts 10,000 Jobs From Health & Human Services Department

Update: Moments ago, the Department of Health and Human Services released its plan to "save taxpayers $1.8 billion per year through a reduction in workforce of about 10,000 full-time employees as part of this latest transformation."

HHS will "streamline the functions of the Department. Currently, the 28 divisions of the HHS contain many redundant units. The restructuring plan will consolidate them into 15 new divisions, including a new Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA, and will centralize core functions such as Human Resources, Information Technology, Procurement, External Affairs, and Policy. Regional offices will be reduced from 10 to 5," the agency wrote in the press release. 

The overhaul is focused on HHS's new priority: Ending America's epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins. 

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy stated, "We aren't just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic," adding, "This Department will do more – a lot more – at a lower cost to the taxpayer."

*   *   * 

The Wall Street Journal has obtained documents indicating that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is preparing to announce large job cuts to overhaul the nation's health agencies. The plan builds on broader cuts by the Trump administration and Elon Musk's DOGE to reduce the size of the bloated federal government that has plundered taxpayer monies for far too long.

Kennedy plans to cut as many as 10,000 employees from the department, adding to the 10,000 who have already left through voluntary severance offers since President Trump took office. 

Documents reviewed by WSJ indicate that, when combined with voluntary departures, the planned cuts would reduce the department's workforce by 25%—bringing it down to 62,000 federal health employees. The plan would also halve the number of regional offices from 10 to 5. 

WSJ provided more color on the cuts:

As part of the 10,000 workers to be let go, the Trump administration plans to cut: 3,500 full-time employees from the Food and Drug Administration—or about 19% of the agency's workforce 2,400 employees from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—or about 18% of its workforce 1,200 employees from the National Institutes of Health—or about 6% of its workforce 300 employees from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—or about 4% of its workforce.

More broadly, the Trump administration's cuts to the bloated federal government and unelected bureaucracy—often called the 'shadow government'—are beginning to filter through the jobs data (first here) with continuing jobless claims in Washington, D.C, now at their highest level since 2021 (now here).

Jobless claims continue to rise across Virginia, DC, and Maryland - an area also known as "Deep Tristate" - where federal workers live and play with free money from taxpayers... Now the party is over:

In addition to a softening labor market across the Deep Tristate, the D.C. housing market is being flooded with inventory (more MLS data here). 

Kennedy's HHS cuts, set to be announced later today, add to the mounting headwinds for the Deep Tristate, as cracks emerge in both the labor and housing markets. 

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 12:45

 

 

I had a great time talking with my old buddy, Jim O’Shaughnessy, about market history and where investors go awry. Jim and I go way back, and we discuss how people make bad decisions and why…

 

Transcript here

 

 

Source:
Make Fewer Errors, Make More Money (Ep. 261)
My conversation with Barry Ritholtz, Jim O’Shaughnessy
Infinite Loops, March 27, 2025

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

XZXXXX

 

 

The post Infinite Loops: Make Fewer Errors, Make More Money appeared first on The Big Picture.

Waste Of The Day: Boeing Lacks "Trained And Experienced" Employees

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: Boeing, the engineering company behind the failed mission that left two astronauts stranded in space, received $6.4 billion in contracts from NASA between fiscal years 2021 and 2024, according to federal data reviewed by OpenTheBooks. Only CalTech, which manages NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, received more money.

Key facts: Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft experienced a thruster malfunction during its first manned flight last June. The ship was forced to return to Earth unmanned, leaving Sunita Williams and Barry Wilmore stuck at the International Space Station.

NASA’s inspector general later released an audit of Boeing’s Exploration Upper Stage launch system — a project unrelated to Starliner, but one that sheds light on deeper issues within the company.

Open the Books

The audit found “quality control issues” with Boeing’s work attributed to “the lack of a sufficient number of trained and experienced aerospace workers at Boeing.”

The Defense Contract Management Agency issued 71 Corrective Action Requests to Boeing between 2021 and 2023, asking the company to fix its quality control problems. But the company was “nonresponsive in taking corrective actions,” the inspector general wrote.

The audit found the its part of the Artemis IV mission — which is supposed to take us back to the moon — is six years behind schedule and an estimated $1.8 billion over budget. It’s now expected to cost $2.8 billion by the time it is used in 2028.

The inspector general recommended that NASA work with Boeing to create a training program for the company’s employees and give Boeing “financial penalties” for not meeting quality control standards.

Boeing’s work on the launch system is documented online, but the public would have no way of finding it by checking USAspending.gov, which is supposed to catalog all federal contracts. The website lists $2.7 billion sent to Boeing for the Ares I project, which has not existed since 2010.

A NASA spokesperson said the money had been shifted to the space launcher system at the request of Congress.

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Summary: The federal government would be wise to investigate companies’ quality control before awarding them billions of dollars worth of contracts, not years after the fact.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 11:45

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Inflation Adjusted House Prices 0.8% Below 2022 Peak

Excerpt:

It has been over 18 years since the housing bubble peak. In the January Case-Shiller house price index released this week, the seasonally adjusted National Index (SA), was reported as being 78% above the bubble peak in 2006. However, in real terms, the National index (SA) is about 12% above the bubble peak (and historically there has been an upward slope to real house prices). The composite 20, in real terms, is 3% above the bubble peak.

People usually graph nominal house prices, but it is also important to look at prices in real terms. As an example, if a house price was $300,000 in January 2010, the price would be $440,000 today adjusted for inflation (47% increase). That is why the second graph below is important - this shows "real" prices.

The third graph shows the price-to-rent ratio, and the fourth graph is the affordability index. The last graph shows the 5-year real return based on the Case-Shiller National Index.
...
The second graph shows the same two indexes in real terms (adjusted for inflation using CPI).

In real terms (using CPI), the National index is 0.8% below the recent peak, and the Composite 20 index is 1.2% below the recent peak in 2022. The real National index and the Composite 20 index increased slightly in real terms in January.

It has now been 32 months since the real peak in house prices. Typically, after a sharp increase in prices, it takes a number of years for real prices to reach new highs (see House Prices: 7 Years in Purgatory)

There is much more in the article!

States Work To Make Gold And Silver Alternative Currencies To US Dollar

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Those who seethe as their dollars lose value to inflation may be pleased to know that many states are now working to pass laws that would allow gold and silver to be used—not only for savings and investment but as everyday currency for purchases and payments as well.

Yee Hui Lau/Shutterstock

The state of Utah took a major step last week toward the use of gold and silver as transactional currencies, allowing their use for state payments to vendors. A bill, sponsored by state Rep. Ken Ivory, passed the Utah state legislature on March 18 and is now awaiting the signature of Gov. Spencer Cox. 

If signed, this bill would make Utah the first state in America to pass a “transactional gold” bill.

“This is about making sure that people have choices,” Ivory told The Epoch Times. “It’s important that we give people a choice in how they store and transact their earnings and their savings.”

For Utah residents, the bill also addressed issues of local autonomy and preservation of savings, he said.

“We express our liberty and our work and our property in something called money, but where the dollar used to be money, now it’s just currency,” he said. “I think people want to see their earnings and property be reflected in real money again.”

Money functions as a medium of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value. But the dollar has struggled to hold its value since it was delinked from gold.

“One of the key elements of precious metals is the ability to hopefully retain purchasing power of your money, and so if the dollar is being eroded by inflation, precious metals have typically been able to preserve purchasing power better than the fiat currency,” Utah state treasurer Marlo Oaks told The Epoch Times.

A Growing Movement to Use Gold as Money

State lawmakers believe they are on firm legal footing in establishing an alternative legal tender. While the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government the exclusive right to “coin money,” it also permits states to make “gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts.”

“That’s one of the key elements of why this is even possible ... because it’s called out in the Constitution,” Oaks said. 

Utah is far from alone in this effort. Many other states are also working to accept gold as currency. 

According to Kevin Freeman, author of “Pirate Money” and a longstanding advocate for using gold as legal tender, the movement by states to legislate transactional gold has gained significant traction over the past several years.

“Now, 25 states have looked at this, and we’re getting even some traditionally blue states that are demonstrating interest,” Freeman told The Epoch Times. “We’ve picked up bipartisan support, and so my optimism is quite high.”

In February, legislators in Mississippi introduced a bill, HB 1064, to make gold and silver legal tender in the state. If the bill passes, it would allow citizens to use gold or silver coins to settle debts and for private transactions.

In December 2024, Missouri introduced the “Constitutional Money Act,” which among other things would recognize gold and silver as legal tender. 

States shaded in gold are actively considering legislation in favor of using gold as legal tender (Source: Constitutional Currency, Kevin Freeman).

Other states working to introduce or pass similar legislation include Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming, according to an organization called Constitutional Currency, which is affiliated with Freeman’s work.

History on Their Side

Historically, gold functioned as money throughout the United States until the federal government intervened to force the transition to what ultimately became a “fiat” currency. The word “fiat” in Latin means “let it be done” in respect of decrees; regarding currencies it has come to mean that they are worth what the issuing government says they are worth, to the extent that people have confidence in the government that issues it.

According to a 2024 Federal Reserve report by Maria Hasenstab, until the 1930s, American banks had to keep gold reserves in their vaults equal to a designated percentage of the money they issued.

When the Great Depression hit in 1929, “people hoarded gold instead of depositing it in banks, which created an international gold shortage,” Hasenstab writes. “Countries around the world basically ran out of supply and were forced off the gold standard.”

A shortage of money caused prices to decline in the 1930s, causing the crisis to escalate. Farmers, for example, could no longer earn enough for their crops to repay bank loans, leading to defaults and the failure of many local banks. 

At the time, the Federal Reserve maintained a tight money supply, restricting credit and causing the U.S. economy to contract further. 

One of the first major efforts to transition Americans away from the use of gold as money occurred in 1933, when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued an executive order to seize privately-held gold, forcing Americans to hand over their gold coins, bullion, and gold certificates. Those who refused faced up to ten years in prison or a fine of $10,000, or both. 

This ended the use of gold for domestic transactions in the United States. 

Thereafter, the value of U.S. paper currency was linked to gold and could theoretically be exchanged into gold for international transactions until 1971, when President Richard Nixon ended this convertibility, leaving the dollar as a purely “fiat” currency.

Dollars Not Holding Value

However, Americans have experienced a dramatic erosion in the value of their money under the fiat currency system. Since Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard in 1971, the U.S. dollar suffered a cumulative inflation of 688 percent. An item you could have purchased for $1 in 1971 costs $7.88 today, according to the U.S. Inflation calculator.

By contrast, gold, which was worth about $40 an ounce in 1971, is trading in the range of $3,000 per ounce today. 

“In 1971, you could buy a house for $20,000 in Salt Lake, or 563 ounces of gold,” Ivory said. “Today, the average house is pushing $600,000, but with 563 ounces of gold you can buy more than three houses.

“Houses aren’t more expensive; they’re less expensive than ever on a fixed standard,” he said. “But our dollar has become this illusory standard where we’ve got unelected people deciding what the inflation rate is, which means how much of our money they’re going to take every year.”

During the past four years, Americans saw the value of their money fall by more than 20 percent, due to trillions of dollars in government spending that expanded the supply of money at a faster rate than the production of goods and services, driving up prices. And while inflation has come down from a high of more than 9 percent per year in 2022, it continues to hover around 3 percent today. 

A number of other issues regarding the dollar, including federal debt and spending, could also erode people’s confidence that it can maintain its value as a fiat currency.

“Certainly as part of our working group, there was a lot of discussion around the impact of inflation, the impact of the amount of debt we have, and the erosion, potentially, of the reserve status of the dollar,” Oaks said. “With BRICS and other foreign entities trying to move away from the dollar, you’ve seen central banks accumulate physical gold.”

The working group that produced Utah’s legislation included former Fed Vice Chair Randal Quarles and former Citibank and American Express CFO Gary Crittenden.

Spending Gold with a Debit Card

According to Freeman, one thing that is necessary for gold to become a commonly used transactional currency is a proliferation of companies like Glint, which is based in the United Kingdom.

Glint holds gold deposits and issues debit cards that allow depositors to spend their gold deposits in any amount and in multiple currencies. The company states on its website that it “offers an alternative to fiat currencies enabling our clients to buy, save, and spend allocated gold with the flexibility of Mastercard.”

“It’s really the result of technological advancements that enable fractional gold transactions as easy as using a debit card,” Oaks said. “The value [of gold deposits] is tracked for you, and you can transact in the economy with the card technology that we have.”

While Freeman hopes that gold and silver will one day be widely available as a transactional currency, he expects this will be an alternative to, rather than a replacement for, the U.S. dollar.

“I don’t see it necessarily replacing the American dollar, unless the dollar were to fail,” he said. 

“But money has changed a lot,” he said. “Now, we have Tap to Pay and Venmo and Bitcoin and PayPal; this is just another way to pay.”

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 11:10

Rutgers University Vs The Libertarian Institute: Capitalism And Socialism

Private ownership. Individualism. Property rights. Wealth creation.

Equity. Welfare. Eliminating class disparities. To each according to his need…

Which way western man?

Visit the ZeroHedge homepage tonight at 7pm ET for our live Capitalism vs Socialism Debate, with socialist Rutgers Professor Ben Burgis facing off against capitalist Editor of the Libertarian Institute Keith Knight. The debate will be moderated by Erik Townsend, host of the MacroVoices podcast.

While it is clear where most ZH readers fall on the issue, best understand those who seek to control you.

As a primer for the debate, below are snapshots into each participants’ positions.

Socialist

No owning beaches, no owning property, and… well maybe there's common ground on the last one.

Capitalist (ancap)

This sum it up the sentiment well…

Agreed.

Abolish democracy aka gang rape and decriminalize all economic activity between consenting adults.

— Voluntaryist Keith (@an_capitalist) January 10, 2025

We’ll see you tonight at 7pm ET.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 10:55

Trump Says Government Likely Won't Be Using Signal After The Atlantic Fallout

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

President Donald Trump said on March 25 that government officials likely will not be using the Signal messaging app after The Atlantic magazine’s editor-in-chief was inadvertently included in a group chat with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and national security adviser Mike Waltz.

When asked about the Signal chat during remarks at the White House on March 25, Trump said: “A lot of times you find out defects by exactly things like that, but I don’t think it’s something we’re looking forward to using again.

“We may be forced to use it. You may be in a situation where you need speed as opposed to gross safety, and you may be forced to use it, but generally speaking, I think we probably won’t be using it very much.”

The fallout came after Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, alleged that he saw a discussion between Hegseth and other officials take place in a group chat he was added to in the Signal messaging app hours before strikes against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen ordered by Trump earlier this month.

The National Security Council has since said the text chain Goldberg reported “appears to be authentic” and that it is looking into how a journalist’s number was added to the chain.

Hegseth spoke to reporters in Hawaii on March 24 and disputed Goldberg’s account, insisting that no war plans were texted in the chat. He also raised questions about Goldberg’s credibility. Goldberg, who published an article in The Atlantic about the group chat, later told MSNBC that his article was based on what he saw in the Signal chat. He accused Hegseth of trying to deflect from the allegations.

Signal uses end-to-end encryption for its messaging and calling services, which prevents any third party from viewing conversation content or listening in on calls. It is considered a popular app for direct messaging, group chats, phone calls, and video calls.

When asked about the use of the chat app, Trump said he “wasn’t involved” but only “heard about it.”

“I hear it’s used by a lot of groups,” he said. “It’s used by the media a lot. It’s used by a lot of the military and, I think, successfully, but sometimes somebody can get onto those things.

“That’s one of the prices you pay when you’re not sitting in the Situation Room with no phones on, which is always the best, frankly ... the best is to be there.”

Earlier in the day, Trump told NBC News that Waltz or a member of his staff had added Goldberg to the chat but defended his national security adviser. He echoed those comments during his remarks in the White House on March 25 and said Waltz does not need to apologize. He suggested that news outlets’ response to the reports has been overblown.

“They’ve made a big deal out of this because we’ve had two perfect months,” Trump said, pivoting to the economy and policies he has initiated since taking office in January. “We’re bringing in business; we have another one announced tomorrow.”

After the recent reports, the president of Signal defended the app, although she did not directly address The Atlantic article.

“Signal is the gold standard in private comms,” Signal President Meredith Whittaker wrote in a post on social media platform X in response to a report that compared Signal to WhatsApp. She attempted to differentiate Signal from WhatsApp, which is owned by Meta Platforms.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 10:35

Europe Rules Out Easing Of Russian Sanctions, Killing Ceasefire Hopes

French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting nations in Paris who make up a 'coalition of the willing' in their continued support to Ukraine, and on Thursday he has announced that sanctions on Russia will not be lifted, as unanimously agreed to among participants.

The twenty-seven heads of mostly European states and governments represented there further agreed there will be no easing of sanctions in exchange for a Black Sea ceasefire.

AFP/Getty Images

A new Black Sea peace initiative was unveiled by Washington at the Riyadh talks, and agreed to by both warring parties as of Wednesday, and would see Russian food and agricultural sanctions lifted, as well as the reconnection of Russian agricultural banks to the international Swift payment system.

The Wall Street Journal's Yaroslav Trofimov points out that "The lifting of sanctions on banking, as demanded by Russia, cannot be done without European say so. Now what?"

Russia has said the naval ceasefire would only come into force after Washington lifts sanctions against its food and fertilizer trade. The energy and Black Sea ceasefires were first announced Tuesday.

There was already severe disagreement with Ukraine concerning its scope and implementation, but Moscow said it was willing to play ball. "In accordance with the agreement between the presidents of Russia and the United States, both sides have committed to implementing the Black Sea initiative," a Kremlin statement had announced, affirming the US-backed agreement.

"This initiative includes guaranteeing safe navigation in the Black Sea, refraining from the use of force, and prohibiting the use of commercial vessels for military purposes, while establishing appropriate control measures through inspections of such vessels."

But Ukraine on the same day had already accused Moscow of "lying" about the terms of the agreement: The Ukrainian defense ministry said the movement of Russian warships outside the "eastern part of the Black Sea" would be treated as a violation of the agreement, according to regional media.

Thus it seems both Kiev and Europe are setting up the Trump-backed partial ceasefire to fail before it even gets off the ground.

As for Macron, he said Thursday that while he welcomes the role of Presdient Trump in overseeing the peace talks, the stance of the 'coalition of the willing' remains clear. "fundamentally, to win peace, and to do this, we must place Ukraine in the best possible position to negotiate and ensure that the peace that will be negotiated will be solid and lasting," he said.

He charged that it remains Russia who is unwilling to abide by terms of the proposed ceasefires, and has been adding unacceptable conditions. The UK's Starmer too said in Paris that "There was absolute clarity that Russia is trying to delay [peace], is playing games, and we have to be absolutely clear about that."

Building a robust peace for Ukraine and Europe. pic.twitter.com/xW2yAkrshf

— Emmanuel Macron (@EmmanuelMacron) March 27, 2025

The British prime minister also hailed "complete clarity that now is not the time for lifting of sanctions." He went so far to say "Quite the contrary, what we discussed is how we can increase sanctions to support the US initiative, to bring Russia to the table through further pressure from this group of countries."

"What came out was strong from the meeting was so many countries standing, as they’ve stood for over three years now, with Ukraine in this crucial moment for as long as it takes for" he said. This certainly pushes peace back further on the horizon - but at this point Moscow is probably OK with that, as its forces gobble up more territory. The longer this drags on, the worse the ground reality gets for the Ukrainian side.

*  *  *

Buy any 2 bags of coffee and receive a free ZeroHedge Tumbler!

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/27/2025 - 10:15

From the NAR: Pending Home Sales Advanced 2.0% in February

Pending home sales improved 2.0% in February according to the National Association of REALTORS®. The Northeast and West experienced month-over-month losses in transactions – with a larger decrease in the West – while the Midwest and South saw gains, which were greatest in the South. Year-over-year, contract signings dropped in all four U.S. regions, with the Midwest undergoing the greatest reduction.

The Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI)* – a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings – grew 2.0% to 72.0 in February. Year-over-year, pending transactions declined 3.6%. An index of 100 is equal to the level of contract activity in 2001.

"Despite the modest monthly increase, contract signings remain well below normal historical levels," said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. "A meaningful decline in mortgage rates would help both demand and supply – demand by boosting affordability, and supply by lessening the power of the mortgage rate lock-in effect."
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The Northeast PHSI fell 0.9% from last month to 62.8, down 2.5% from February 2024. The Midwest index inched up 0.7% to 73.3 in February, down 4.7% from the previous year.

The South PHSI jumped 6.2% to 86.0 in February, down 3.4% from a year ago. The West index contracted by 3.0% from the prior month to 55.9, down 3.5% from February 2024.
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Note: Contract signings usually lead sales by about 45 to 60 days, so this would usually be for closed sales in March and April.