Barrels of Crude Oil in the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve(SPR):
The SPR was drawn down for 17 months in a row, which contributed to a lower CPI inflation number.
As of the latest reading, the drain has finally stopped; with barrels of crude oil in the SPR stabilizing at 372 million, or about 19 days of supply at current levels of consumption.
The interest expense to service outstanding debt will soon exceed $1 trillion in the US.
To put this into context: $1 trillion is greater than the $767 billion spent on defense in 2022, and more than double the $475 billion spent on interest expense during the same year.
The sharp rise in interest expense was directly caused by the rapid increase of interest rates from the Fed (from 0% to 5%).
Making this worse, the Fed is expected to raise interest rates a further 0.25% this Wednesday.
There is just too much debt. IMO we are in the beginning of a debt spiral. The only way the US can pay down it's debt is... by issuing more debt. Expect high inflation for a long time.
Returns so far this year...
MicroStrategy: +145.4%
Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC): +98.1%
#Bitcoin : +76.9%
Ethereum: +56.8%
Tesla: +33.4%
NASDAQ: +16.8%
Gold: +9.4%
Dow Jones: +2.9%
Oil: -5.1%
In 2017 the price of $ETH reached a high relative to #Bitcoin , but has never recovered.
The most "bullish" catalysts for ETH have turned out to be nothing burgers in terms of price. Looking in more detail...
June 12, 2017: ETH reached it's all time high relative to BTC.
$BTC denominated return since then: -55%
August 5, 2021: Ethereum implemented EIP 1559, a scheme to "burn" ETH tokens to reduce supply, rather than give them to miners as a reward, making ETH "ultrasound money".
$BTC denominated return since then: -5%
September 15, 2022: Ethereum completed the merge to proof of stake.
$BTC denominated return since then: -13%
All "cryptos" are going to 0*
*when priced in $BTC
The image below are the most popular cryptos listed on Coinmarketcap this day 5 years ago.
Their price performance relative to $BTC since then:
Ethereum (ETH): -10%
Ripple (XRP): -82%
Bitcoin Cash (BCH): -97%
EOS: -98%
Litecoin (LTC): -81%
Cash Holdings of Big Companies:
Cash holding of big companies ($ billion):
Alphabet: 113.8
Microsoft: 104.8
Amazon: 70.0
Apple: 48.3
Meta (Facebook): 40.7
Berkshire Hathaway: 35.8
Tesla: 22.2
Nvidia: 13.3
(as of most recent annual filing)
Many people believe that the US is spending TOO MUCH on defense, which leads to overspending, huge deficits, and debts.
The data says otherwise.
The US gets it's income from taxes, and uses that money to fund it's spending programs. Tax income growth has outpaced spending for defense from 1971 until now (shown in the chart below).
In my opinion the bigger issue is that the US is not spending *enough* for defense.
In the short term, all roads lead to #Bitcoin.
(a) banks fail, trust in banking is lost, money flows into Bitcoin
(b) banks bailed out by government with freshly printed money, inflation rises, money flows into Bitcoin
Aging demographics are a big problem for the United States.
Spending on Medicare is one the biggest contributors to the US's over-spending problem.
Over the past several decades, the growth in spending for Medicare has far outpaced the growth in income that the US receives through taxation.
Specifically since 1971, US's income from taxes(bold black line) has 26X'd, but spending on Medicare has 190X'd.
Income from taxation is not growing fast enough to keep up with this level of spending.
The VIX today closed at similar levels to what it experienced during the peak of the equites bull market in January 2022.
The Volatility Index (VIX) or "fear gauge", is a tool used to measure uncertainty in equity markets.
As measured by the VIX, equity markets are predicting little in terms of future expected volatility. "Fear" in markets is low.
$SPY $VIX
The VIX today closed at similar levels to what it experienced during the peak of the equites bull market in January 2022.
The Volatility Index (VIX) or "fear gauge", is a tool used to measure uncertainty in equity markets.
As measured by the VIX, equity markets are predicting little in terms of future expected volatility. "Fear" in markets is low.
$SPY $VIX
“Just like there is no spoon inside The Matrix, there is no "stake." The term "stake" is just a metaphor for the special administrative privileges given to users who own ETH. It's purely an imaginary concept, an object-oriented software abstraction that doesn't physically exist and therefore is physically impossible to verifiably decentralize.
"Stake" (and consequently the special administrative privileges it represents)
cannot be decentralized anywhere except exclusively within people's imaginations because "stake" itself is an abstract concept. Proof-of-stake systems are what's known as decentralized in name only (DINO) systems because it's physically impossible to verify that "stake" isn't already majority-owned by a single person or institution”
Jason Lowery
#Bitcoin holders will inherit the earth:
“because global leaders don't understand computer theory well enough to understand that the term "bitcoin" is purely an arbitrary name, or because researchers aren't taking these theories seriously, this could mean that nation states are allowing themselves to become among the last institutions to establish a foothold in this potentially strategically vital space within cyberspace. This could upturn global power projection dynamics and dramatically restructure the digital-age geopolitical environment, exactly as planetary-scale computing theorists predict will happen.”
-Jason Lowery
From 1868 until 1913, 90% of all federal revenue came from taxes on liquor, beer, wine, and tobacco.
Top #Bitcoin related app store downloads:
1. Cash App (Bitcoin only)
2. PayPal
3. Venmo
4. Fidelity
5. Robinhood
6. Webull
7. Coinbase
8. Trust
9. Binance
10. Crypto dot com