From the creators of The Daily Reckoning, I.O.U.S.A, Empire of Debt and The Daily Missive
From the creators of The Daily Reckoning, I.O.U.S.A, Empire of Debt and The Daily Missive
May 15, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
A $36 trillion dollar bombshell has just been dropped. You need to prepare now to protect your wealth and save your future.
November 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Last night’s 60–40 Senate vote shoved the government back toward “on.” There’s apparently a shutdown truce… for now.
A bloc of Democrats “crossed the aisle” after weeks of getting nowhere on health-care demands. “We had no path forward… and SNAP beneficiaries were losing benefits,” Sen. Tim Kaine, one of the 7 who conveniently aren’t up for reelection, said.
The new deal funds Washington only through January, tacks on three bills to keep parts of Defense, Ag, and the Capitol complex humming through 2026, reverses shutdown-era RIFs, and restores back pay.
The House is next; the president says he’ll sign it fast when it gets to the Oval Office.
November 10, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 7, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 12, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Although consumer debt is at an all-time high, consumers themselves got the message during the last crisis: Pay down debt, own more assets.
That’s taken the U.S. household debt-to-asset ratio to levels last seen in the 1970s, around the time the U.S. went off the gold standard.
November 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 10, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
November 11, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
A 50-year mortgage doesn’t make housing cheaper. But by stretching the repayment period over time, it DOES lower the monthly payment on your principal. That lowers the percentage of your total income you’re spending on repayment. And in a strange way, it makes sense.
With a fixed rate mortgage and inflation running in the high upper digits, the real value you of your total debt goes down over time (inflation pays off your loan, as long as your income rises faster in nominal terms). Of course you pay off a lot more interest over 50 years than 30 years. And it takes a lot longer to build up equity (assuming also that house prices don’t fall).
November 10, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
If I were to sum up the mindset of New Yorkers who elected Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York City, it would be We want something for nothing, and we want the rich to pay for it. Instead, they will get nothing for something, and they will pay for it with a degraded quality of life.
Mamdani’s victory was paved with ingratitude for the blessings New Yorkers receive daily. The mindset demanding “something for nothing” from society is not just a political phenomenon, but a profound lapse in economic understanding and moral character.
November 7, 2025 • James Hickman
Real assets in general tend to hold their value during inflationary periods — because they’re not just paper promises. They’re tangible. They’re productive. They’re the raw inputs the economy is actually built on.
One of the most obvious opportunities right now — possibly the most mispriced sector in the entire market — is energy.
The world does not exist without energy. Full stop. People have been fed a ridiculous lie that oil is going to disappear and we’re all going to drive solar-powered EVs and Exxon is going to go out of business.
November 7, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Anticipating a sluggish labor market, the Fed has cut rates twice this fall.
Unfortunately, you can’t fix a reorganization with cheaper money. AI will eat the easy tasks first, so the pain you see — pink slips — is only half the story. Those jobs will likely never return.
November 6, 2025 • Lau Vegys
If you’re from New York—or know anyone there—you’ll probably agree: most New Yorkers are fed up with crime, the outrageous cost of living, government incompetence and corruption—and, yes, the rats.
But the fact that a hard-core socialist like Mamdani is their favorite pick to solve those problems tells you that most voters have no idea why any of it is happening.
Their hatred of Donald Trump—and a steady diet of MSNBC—has made them blind to the obvious: it’s the Left’s policies creating these problems. You have rent control shrinking supply by forcing landlords to pull units from the market, union giveaways jacking up the cost of transportation, zero-bail laws putting criminals back on the streets, and so on and so forth.
November 6, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Markets are having themselves a moody little week.
The Dow’s off 1%, the S&P 500’s down 2%, and the Nasdaq — where the AI darlings dance — has stumbled nearly 4%.
Even the refuge assets are catching cold: gold glitters less, and bitcoin, ever the high-strung teenager of finance, is down nearly 8%.
At the moment, traders aren’t sure what to make of it all.
Trump’s tariffs are under review at the Supreme Court, Zohran Mamdani’s socialist experiment is about to begin in New York City, and the AI trade — Wall Street’s favorite bedtime story — is between plot twists.
November 6, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
It isn’t hard to see why young people are looking for an alternative.
This cohort came of age through financial crises, inflation, a pandemic, trillion-dollar federal debts, chronic political deceit, a rough job market, predatory credit, expensive degrees with dubious ROI, and rents that make homeownership a punchline.
The status quo clearly isn’t working for the young. In that vacuum, socialism seems “cool,” so why not try it?
November 5, 2025 • Andrew Packer
Decline will be felt by the economy on a lag and could be what ends up torpedoing his second term, along with his tariffs and the greatest bubble in history way overdue to burst in the next few years.
I objectively expect the music to stop while Trump is still in office, and no president gets re-elected in a bad economy (or his VP Vance), and this should be the worst since 1930-33.
If this decline had occurred right after he entered office, he wouldn’t have been blamed for it, or not as much. But after a full year+ and his tariffs appearing as a trigger, he will very much end up being blamed.
November 5, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
Voters in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia proved again that they don’t know much about economics — or history. Bad timing, given the precarious melt-up in AI stocks and the market’s collective sugar high.
It’s fitting, somehow, isn’t it? That today is Guy Fawkes Day — a day when rebellious Brits gather to light bonfires and celebrate the foiling of a plot to blow up Parliament in 1605.
Four centuries later, voters, central bankers, and mayors-in-waiting all light their own fuses. The political class no longer needs Guy Fawkes to torch the system; it’s doing just fine on its own.
November 5, 2025 • Addison Wiggin
The gold rally to over $4,400 this year has been driven by central bank buying and a supply crunch – not retail investors’ interest.
If AI stocks are, in fact, about to crash, as Harry Dent and Adam O’Dell will be making the case for today, gold’s sitting at a 10% discount to the market high.
