Category: Economy

The Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (NYSEARCA:VOO) is a main go-to for many passive investors. And while even the great Warren Buffett thinks investors should bet on the main stock index, there are those out there who just aren’t satisfied by betting on 500 of America’s top firms. Indeed, the S&P 500 will allow you to…

Which States Pay The Most (& Least) US Federal Tax Revenue Per Person In 2023, the U.S. federal government collected $4.67 trillion in taxes and redistributed $4.56 trillion back to states and residents. But which states contributed the most—and least—on a per-person basis? This dataset, originally published by USAFacts, shows how much federal revenue each state…

British Exports To US Suffer Record Slump As Tariffs Take Effect Authored by Guy Birchall via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), UK exports to the United States suffered a sharp drop of 8.8 percent in April, as the effect of U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs began to take effect, official data revealed on June…

Sex Crimes Spark Three Nights Of Anti-Immigration Riots In N. Ireland In the wake of yet another alleged sex crime perpetrated by non-natives, a city in Northern Ireland has been rocked by three consecutive nights of anti-immigration riots. In this case, two 14-year-olds arrested on Sunday stand accused of attempted oral rape of a teenage girl…

‘Theft Is Theft’: Disney, NBC Go After AI Firm Midjourney For ‘Blatant’ Piracy Two of Hollywood’s biggest players – Disney and NBCUniversal – have teamed up to launch a legal assault on the AI world, suing image generator Midjourney for what they call blatant copyright infringement. via Disney/NBCU According to a federal complaint filed in…

Images Emerge Of Tehran Destruction After Major Israeli ‘Preemptive Attack’; IRGC Chief Killed LIVE FEED from Al Jazeera: * * *  Update2330ET: It appears there were at least two waves of Israeli attacks, with smoke still seen over Iranian military sites and areas of Tehran in the daylight morning hours. ISRAEL PREPARING FOR IRANIAN RESPONSE IN…

Trump Can And Should Fire Fed Boss Over Economy Authored by Christian Whiton via RealClearPolitics, Federal Reserve kingpin Jerome Powell is busy doing what he does best: sabotaging a prosperous economy so that President Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans lose popularity. He’s also ignoring Trump, whom voters will judge for the economy’s performance and…

Iran’s IRGC Chief Salami Killed In Major Israeli Attack As War Erupting LIVE FEED from Al Jazeera: * * *  Update2215ET: In a massive development via Iranian state sources, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Major Gen. Hossein Salami has been killed in Israel’s major Israeli attack on Tehran and other locations…

GOP Lawmakers Reiterate Asks For Clean Energy Credit Tweaks In Reconciliation Bill By Lamar Johnson of Utility Dive Kiggans and a nearly identical group of House Republicans wrote to their House colleagues last month seeking positive changes to the clean energy tax credit phaseout plan that came out of committee work on the reconciliation bill….

Democrat Judge Rules Against Trump Over Use Of National Guard In California Riots A federal judge on Thursday blocked the Trump administration from deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles, and has directed Trump to ‘return control of the California National Guard to Governor Newsom.’ BREAKING: Judge Breyer orders Trump to return control of the National…

Israeli Airstrikes On Tehran Will Continue ‘For Days’, Netanyahu Warns As Iran Counterattacks LIVE FEED from Al Jazeera: * * *  Update (2115ET): Al Jazeera and regional media have reported at least six large explosions were observed in the Iranian capital of Tehran, as Israel confirms it has launched ‘Operation Rising Lion’ – which importantly…

Russia Relocates Strategic Bombers To Protect From Ukraine Drone Swarms Following Ukraine’s long-range drone assault on June 1st which was dubbed ‘Operation Spider’s Web’ – and which resulted in the destruction of at least several aircraft, including strategic bombers – Russia has relocated dozens of strategic bombers to remote airbases, new satellite imagery shows. Ukraine had…

Watch: Polish MEP Destroys LGBTQ Exhibition, Gets Banned From Polish Parliament Building Via Remix News, Prominent right-wing Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun destroyed a pro-LGBT exhibition on Wednesday in the Polish parliament. The organization “Tęczowe Opole” had created the exhibit to present photos and accounts of young homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people from the Opole region,…

Smartmatic Accused Of Deleting Evidence In $2.7B Fox News Defamation Case: Court Docs Executives at voting software firm Smartmatic ordered the deletion and doctoring of key evidence tied to the company’s $2.7 billion defamation case against Fox News, according to claims in a bombshell court filing made Wednesday in New York. In a new legal…

Left In The Lurch: Are PA Partisans Flipping Sides On Fetterman? Authored by Christopher Nicholas via RealClearPennsylvania, Are the party positions on always-newsy senior U.S. Sen. John Fetterman flipping here in Pennsylvania? Fetterman continues to dominate the state’s “political attention” economy, as he has for a long time. Last week in Boston, he and Republican…

“No Thrust”: Over 260 Dead And One Survivor After Air India Crash Latest… 242 passengers are dead with one survivor after an Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner crashed moments after takeoff Thursday in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad. The plane was headed for London Gatwick Airport. In total, 269 bodies have been taken to…

Data Center Boom May Turn Into Long-Term Glut Risk, Goldman Warns In a note to clients earlier this week, Goldman analyst Vinay Viswanathan provided an update on the U.S. data center securitization market for their clients. He noted that the market, driven by massive investments in facilities equipped with thousands of GPUs that power large language…

House Approves Bill To Codify $9.4 Billion In DOGE Cuts To Foreign Aid, Public Media Authored by Jackson Richman & Nathan Worcester via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The House of Representatives passed a bill on June 12 to rescind $9.4 billion in federal spending. Introduced by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), it passed…

Putin Reminds West That Russia Has World’s Most Advanced Nuclear Weapons Russian President Vladimir Putin during a Wednesday meeting of government ministers and military leaders took the opportunity to remind all other nations, especially the West, that Russia possesses the world’s most advanced nuclear weapons. He introduced in the public statements that “special attention” must…

The Case For Saying I’m Sorry Authored by Jeffrey A. Tucker via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), Commentary Elon Musk and Donald Trump had a blowup last week that grew unusually sharp, thus hitting headlines the world over. President Donald Trump and White House Senior Advisor, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shake hands while…

White House Fears Iranian Response To An Attack Could Overwhelm Israel’s Air Defenses Iran’s military says it’s ready for anything at a moment President Trump has reiterated that an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites could be imminent. Such a strike “could very well happen,” the president said Thursday. But…“We are ready for any scenario…

Locked Out Of The Dream: Regulation Making Homes Unaffordable Around The World Authored by Joel Kotkin & Wendell Cox via RealClearInvestigations, The first in a two-part series on the global housing crisis. Next to inflation, Americans ranked housing as their top financial worry in a Gallup survey last May. It’s only gotten worse. January home sales were…

Widespread Google Outage Hits Services With “Intermittent Failures” Google Cloud is experiencing widespread outages late this afternoon, according to the outage-tracking website Downdetector.com. While Google has yet to issue an official statement, users on X have begun reporting disruptions across multiple services: There appears to be a massive outage going on… Twitch, Discord, Google Cloud,…

“I Am Senator Alex Padilla!”: Democrat Lawmaker Deported From DHS Press Conference, Placed In Handcuffs Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) was physically removed from a DHS press conference and placed in handcuffs on Thursday, after reportedly lunging at Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem during a press conference in Los Angeles. Watch: BREAKING: California Democratic Senator @AlexPadilla4CA just…

LA Riots Hand Republicans Script For Midterms Authored by Philip Wegmann & Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics, The masked man on the motorcycle, the one who waved a Mexican flag in front of a torched car as Los Angeles police stood by, will soon be famous. His identity remains unknown, his image iconic – but for…

Senators To Propose Ban On Big Pharma Ads As TV Networks Stand To Get Wrecked Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, both independents, on Thursday will introduce legislation that would ban pharmaceutical companies from promoting prescription drugs directly to consumers – including through television, radio, print, digital platforms, and social media, the WSJ reports. The…

Trump Administration Launches Website For ‘Gold Card’ Visas Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Trump administration has launched a new website for people interested in so-called gold card visas, which the president has said would grant citizenship in exchange for millions of dollars. President Donald Trump arrives on Capitol Hill…

FBI Arrests Suspected NGO Face-Shield Foot Soldier In L.A. Riots One day after FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News, “The FBI is investigating any and all monetary connections responsible for these riots” in Los Angeles.  United States Attorney Bill Essayli, a top federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, announced on X that Alejandro Theodoro Orellana was arrested…

Trump Calls Musk A “Friend” While Discussing EV Mandates Update (1338ET):  After The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times pushed out headlines on Wednesday suggesting a possible end to the Musk-Trump feud, President Trump confirmed the cooling of tensions by calling Elon Musk a “friend” while speaking to reporters ahead of plans to abolish California’s vehicle…

Stellar 30Y Auction Stops Through Amid Jump In Foreign Demand After a medicore 3Y auction to start the week, a solid 10Y auction yesterday, jittery traders were left with just one Treasury sale this week, arguably the most challenging one: today’s $25BN 30Y auction. In retrospect, there was no reason to worry because demand for…

Man Who Flew 120 Times For Free By Posing As Flight Attendant Convicted Of Fraud Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A man was convicted by a federal jury of wire fraud and entering a secure area of an airport under false pretenses after posing as a flight attendant to obtain…

AUKUS-ward If You “Don’t Do Geopolitics” By Michael Every of Rabobank US CPI, even weaker-than-expected 0.1% m-o-m headline and core and 2.4% and 2.8% y-o-y, wasn’t the main event. Neither was President Trump again calling for the Fed to cut 100bps at its next meeting to lower US debt-servicing costs (when our Fed-watcher Philip says…

Tennessee Sues US Department Of Education Over Hispanic Student Funding Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A civil rights lawsuit filed on June 11 in federal court for the Eastern District of Tennessee claims that a program providing federal money to colleges and universities if Hispanic students make up at least…

Key Points It’s common to rack up a large credit card balance. Being owed a huge credit on a credit card account is less typical. It’s important to investigate situations where a bank claims you’re owed money on an old account. Did you know some credit cards can actually help you get OUT of debt…

PPI Shows Companies Eating Tariff Costs, Bloomberg Finds Earlier today, when analyzing the latest PPI data, we concluded that – at least so far – it is companies that are eating tariffs costs, not passing them on to consumers. In a subsequent report, Bloomberg agrees.  Echoing what we said, Bloomberg writes that the details from…

Trump Says He Won’t Fire “Numbskull” Powell, But Demands Rate Cuts President Trump said he did not plan to fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, days after saying he would “soon” pick his nominee – to lead the central bank next, with Polymarket odds suggesting Hassett, Warsh and Bessent are favorites to replace Powell. “The fake…

Army General Says Marines May Temporarily Detain Protesters In LA Authored by Katabella Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops ordered to Los Angeles by President Donald Trump in response to protests over immigration enforcement operations lack the authority to arrest protesters but may temporarily detain them…

This post The Empire-Builders’ Secret appeared first on Daily Reckoning. Speed. Reliability. Reach. Those are the hallmarks of any great communication system, whether you’re a Persian emperor trying to hold together the largest empire on Earth, or an American frontier government trying to link gold miners in California to politicians in Washington. This is the…