Money Daily

Sunday, October 12, 2025

WEEKEND WRAP: London Silver Short Squeeze; Stocks Wrecked in Response on China Tariff Talk; Ways to Survive -and Thrive - Through Government Collapse

The U.S. government shutdown, which, as of Sunday, is on day 12, is no longer news, because economics has exceeded it in terms of importance.

Americans need to stop beating around the bush and face up to reality.

The U.S. government has failed.

It's no longer a question of whether or not the government is going to fail or when it's going to fail, but rather what are you going to do now that it has failed.

The U.S. federal government is $37.5 trillion in debt. That is a sum of money that will never be repaid in full. The practice of simply "rolling over" expiring obligations with new debt is a privilege that has long been abused. It reveals an unwillingness to make hard decisions for the benefit of the country. Beyond that, congress long ago (1913, roughly) abrogated its authority to regulate currency or money, allowing it to be usurped by the international banking cartel's creation of the Federal Reserve System.

The constitution has been trampled upon by presidents, congress, and judiciary for decades. The country is no longer ruled by laws, but by men and women who do as they please, secure in the knowledge that they will not face consequences for any actions, legal, illegal, or otherwise.

Elections - the important ones, at least - are bought, sold, won, and lost by wealthy people who wield money as power. Even when a person or party wins by popular mandate, they are quickly brought to heel by the powerful special interests in Washington. Nothing ever gets fixed. No bad laws are ever repealed. Few, if any, campaign promises are kept.

The "democracy" that we are told about by the media, that kids are taught about in school, that loud-mouthed, immoral politicians constantly harp about protecting and preserving, does not exist. The federal government, in its functional reality, is a corporation. Senators and members of the House of Representatives are vice presidents or senior managers in charge of the various operations: war, welfare, propaganda, extortion, and control of commerce are their principal interests. The president is a CEO, though the judiciary, principally via the Supreme Court, in its role as a Board of Directors, can effectively overrule executive decisions.

In essence, the U.S. federal government is an oligarchy with patriarcal tendencies. Power is promulgated through generations.

Now that it's understood that the government "of the people, by the people, for the people" is nothing but a false platitude permanently intended to obfuscate the true structure of government, the question Americans need to individually answer is, what am I going to do about it?

Not, what are we going to do about it? There is no "we." There is no assembled opposition. There is not going to be a revolution, or civil war, or any kind of populist movement. The closest Americans have ever come to a united voice for their own liberty in recent years have been the anti-war movement of the 1960s, the "tea party" of the 2010s, and the current MAGA movement, all of which were marginalized by government effort through back-door deals, media slander, and deep state coercion.

Most people are content with doing nothing, going to work, collecting a paycheck from which the government's "cut" is taken out before receipt and hoping for the best. When it turns out that there never will be a "best", that conditions continue to worsen, they're stuck with - if they're lucky - government taking 20-30% of their labor, rent or mortgage another 30-40%, food and energy another 20%, and incidentals the rest, so that by the end of the week, or the month, there's literally nothing left over. Credit cards make up for any shortfall, but that money, at 20-25% or more, has to be repaid. The vast majority of American workers are little more than wage and tax slaves, toiling away on the open-air plantation called America.

For them, there is little recourse, but, that's not a problem since most of them have been so indoctrinated and dumbed-down by the corrosive, compulsory eduction system, they don't know any better.

There may be 10-15% of the population that understands most of this, and maybe that number includes you. So, what are your choices?

Here's the short list:

Leave: A passport costs less than $200, but travel and relocation can be expensive. Beyond the costs, where do you go? Options are limited, since most other countries have problems similar or worse than the U.S.. There are language obstacles, culture shocks, and climate priorities to consider. In the end, it may be easier, less costly, and more practical to stay within the U.S. and move to a state that somewhat has its own house in order.
Make yourself poor: There are considerable benefits to being poor, if you can handle the ins-and-outs of applying for food stamps, rent assistance, energy grants, etc. It's not for everybody, and there's no guarantee that you are approved for various hand-outs or that the government won't just someday cut everybody off (remember, they're broke).
Cheat: Lots of people resort to this. Working off the books, "under the table" so to speak, without reporting income so that you keep everything for yourself. Of course, this approach carries inordinate risks. If you're caught, you may have to pay back taxes, or worse, do some prison time. If you are caught, the government will be watching you forever afterwards. The upside is that you can make a lot of money doing odd jobs, selling stuff, or a variety of other activities, like gig work, without paying Uncle Sugar. There are probably a lot of people who combine #2 (being poor) with #3 (cheating) who do pretty well. While the government may be big and all-seeing, it tends to overlook the small fry.
Play Along: This is what supposedly rational people do. Get a job that pays well, keep expenses down, allocate a portfolio to 40% stocks, 20% fixed income, 30% gold and silver and 10% cash. Not having kids or a wife - or husband - helps. Eschewing many of the niceties of modern life isn't for everybody, but if you can live without the latest iPhone, newer cars, $6 lattes, dining out, plush carpets, and a 72-inch TV and cable plan, you can make this work.
Gamble: With online gambling and individual investment accounts, what could go wrong? Plenty. Most people who take this approach - thinking they can outwit the oddsmakers and/or Wall Street sharks end up in the poor house. (See #2)
Go Off-the-Grid: Finally, there is the option to just give up completely on ever having a reasonable lifestyle, grow a beard, stop bathing, buy some land, solar panels, and a used camper and tough it out in the woods. Grow your own food, hunt, raise goats, sheep, cattle, chickens, etc. Who knows? The government could completely collapse, there could be more war, maybe nuclear, and you'd hardly notice.
Start a Business: Though it's not easy, nor practical, if you plan on running an industrial firm or anything that requires lots of capital, be it in the form of money, labor or material. There's p still plenty of money sloshing around looking for investments, but when it comes to labor or material, inflation is making those more and more expensive. Service businesses are optimal, especially if you have specific skills. Many lawyers, doctors, lumberjacks, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, coders, and other skilled professionals do very well. Tax advantages and expensing of costs are abundant in small business environments. The base requirements for running one's own business boil down to a few simple principles, which include, but are not limited to: not wanting a job, keeping one's own hours, having freedom to do as one pleases, not being tracked every minute of every day, self-discipline, ability to make decisions, being smart and maybe a little cynical, a frugal attitude, persistence, perseverance, and hard work. This, beyond all else, is the ultimate solution. Even if the government is still going to take 21% of your income, that's net, after expenses. Self-employment and entrepreneurship isn't without downsides such as long hours, variable revenue flows, possible government intervention, but how you structure the business is crucial to success.
The Combo Approach: Take what appeals to you from the outlines above, and work out a personal plan or compromise. Being frugal isn't a sin. Your friends may call you a cheapskate, but, while they're paying $2000 a month rent and $600 a month car payment, you own your home outright and drive a used truck that's paid for. Self-awareness and keeping costs down (don't we all wish the government would do this?) are probably the best steps forward anybody can make toward escaping the matrix of a government in chaos and society without guardrails.

It is really up to you.

As a wake-up reminder, Over 1 Billion People Live In Slums.

Proceeding to the regular financial findings...

Stocks

Friday's downdraft on the heels of President Trump's tweeting about big tariffs on China sent a few shockwaves up and down the Wall Street spinal cord, but it wasn't anything that wasn't already under consideration. The U.S. and China are about twenty seconds to midnight in terms of blowing each other's brains out, so spiking the tariff ball isn't exactly earth-shattering.

However, there is the distinct feeling that if the U.S. is cut off from Chinese trade, it's going to hurt. Trump has already announced bailouts for soybean farmers who were damaged by his actions against China, which responded by ceasing to buy U.S. soybeans and other crops, instead sourcing from BRICS partner, Brazil.

Farmers, incidentally, especially those of the mega-corporate variety, are heavily subsidized by the government already. Maybe the government should just get out of the agriculture business and let farmers farm (never happen).

The deeper, more dire implications of the U.S.-China trade war are what happens to critical supply chains and supplies of rare earths, which started all this to begin with. Trump's trade policies, in addition to being inflationary, will result in shortages, empty shelves, and, if America is lucky, a greater depression. Think anybody in Washington, D.C. cares about any of this? Only so far as their stock holdings are concerned, and, given the rough sledding on Friday, it's a safe bet that all the Senators and House members who aren't doing anything - because the government is shut down, remember? - were all safely out of the market prior to President Loudmouth's latest Truth Social post.

Will TACO Trump show up on Monday to tell everybody he was only joking? Very possible. But, Monday and Tuesday are likely to be interesting from a trader's perspective. Following a deep dive on Friday, there are usually more than a fair share of nervous Nellies looking to dump out of stocks. Problem is, they can't go to bonds until Tuesday, because the bond market is closed Monday for Columbus Day.

That means they'll either go to cash or... wait for it... GOLD. The CME is open Monday.

Sectors hit the hardest on Friday were tech stocks and the Dow Transports, which was down nearly double, in percentage terms, than the other majors.

For the Week:
Dow: -1,278.68 (-2.73%)
NASDAQ: -576.08 (-2.53%)
S&P 500: -163.28 (-2.43%)
NYSE Composite: -628.49 (-2.89%)
Dow Transports: -772.74 (-4.88%)

Looking at those weeklies, it is striking how uniform the declines are, almost as if they were somewhat predetermined. That kind of symmetry occurs naturally, but not usually in markets run by humans equipped with computers and high-frequency trading tools.

There are any number of analytical and crystal ball forecasts for what happens next week, but few are calling for a crash. Ed Dowd pointed out on X that stock market crashes do not typically occur right after all time highs, suggesting that they usually come after some back-and-forth in markets with some added pain prior to a major drawdown.

The opposite end of the investment spectrum argues that the current climate is unlike that of 1929 or 1987, that the market is actually a gambling parlor that happens to trade stocks and that algorithms are keyed to headlines along with HFTs, so there's the possibility of a Monday Meltdown.

Not taking sides, early birds may want to keep an eye on NIKKEI futures. From current indications, it looks like a global sell-off of wildly overvalued stocks is dead ahead. Far East markets open around 6:00 pm ET. Stay tuned.

Earnings are going to be in focus in the week ahead. Here are some of the more prominent companies reporting third quarter results:

Monday, October 13: (before open) Fastenal (FAST)

Tuesday, October 14: (before open) Blackrock (BLK), JP Morgan Chase (JPM), Goldman Sachs (GS), Wells Fargo (WFC), Citi (C), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Domino's Pizza (CPZ), Albertsons (ACI), Ericsson (ERIC); (after close) Equity Bancshares (EQBK)

Wednesday, October 15: (before open) Morgan Stanley (MS), Synchrony Financial (SYF), Citizen's Financial (CFG), First Horizon (FHN), Bank of America (BAC), ASML (ASML), Progressive (PGR), Dollar Tree (DLTR), Abbott Labs (ABT) ; (after close) United Airlines (UAL), Pinnacle Financial (PNFP), Synovus (SNV), J.B. Hunt (JBHT)

Thursday, October 16: (before open) Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM), Key Bank (KEY), Bank of New York Mellon (BNY), Charles Schwab (SCHW), Travelers (TRV), Marsh McLennan (MMC), Infosys (INFY); (after close) Bank of the Ozarks (OZK), Simmons Bank (SFNC), Interactive Brokers (IBKR), CSX (CSX)

Friday, October 10: (before open) State Street (STT), American Express (AXP), Fifth Third Bank (FITB), Huntington Bancshares (HBAN), Truist Financial (TFC), Regions Financial (RF), Comerica (CMA), Ally (ALLY), Schlumberger (SLB).

The Shiller PE (CAPE) closed out the week at 39.09, down from Wednesday's (October 8) 25-year high of 40.32, since the dotcom bubble (Decemebr 1999) 44.14.

BTW: The ~~casino~~ stock market is open Monday, though it is a federal holiday, whether you call it old-school Columbus Day or woke, Indigenous People's Day. Bond markets, however, are closed, according to SIFMA.

Treasury Yield Curve Rates

Date	1 Mo	1.5 mo	2 Mo	3 Mo	4 Mo	6 Mo	1 Yr
09/05/2025	4.29	4.24	4.24	4.07	4.05	3.85	3.65
09/12/2025	4.24	4.24	4.20	4.08	4.02	3.83	3.66
09/19/2025	4.19	4.16	4.14	4.03	3.98	3.81	3.60
09/26/2025	4.22	4.20	4.17	4.02	4.00	3.83	3.67
10/03/2025	4.24	4.17	4.11	4.03	3.96	3.82	3.64
10/10/2025	4.19	4.16	4.10	4.02	3.96	3.81	3.60

Date	2 Yr	3 Yr	5 Yr	7 Yr	10 Yr	20 Yr	30 Yr
09/05/2025	3.51	3.48	3.59	3.80	4.10	4.72	4.78
09/12/2025	3.56	3.52	3.63	3.81	4.06	4.65	4.68
09/19/2025	3.57	3.56	3.68	3.88	4.14	4.71	4.75
09/26/2025	3.63	3.66	3.76	3.96	4.20	4.74	4.77
10/03/2025	3.58	3.59	3.72	3.90	4.13	4.69	4.71
10/10/2025	3.52	3.52	3.65	3.83	4.05	4.60	4.63

Friday's stock market mayhem triggered a rally in treasuries, with major moves in long-dated maturities as the week came to an abrupt, unruly close. Treasuries had been fairly stable and dull until Friday, with the moved coming in yields on 10s, 20s and 30s, which were down 8, 9, and 8 basis points, respectively.

Spreads weakened, with 2s-10s falling to +45 from +53, and full spectrum falling to +43 from +47.

What's important to note is that the yield curve, from 2-year notes out, is normal, but short term bills out to 2-year and 3-year notes are sloping in the wrong direction, i.e., inverted. This should be all one needs to know about the direction of the Fed, which is leaning more and more on the dovish side. If there's major stock market carnage - which may be part of the overall plan - Powell might conjure up some fresh funds via an emergency cut of 50 to 100 basis points. It's not like it hasn't happened before, and it will happen again.

If that occurs, bet your bottom dollar the news media will be howling about the recession, about how the government shutdown caused it, and how the government needs to reopen "RIGHT AWAY!"

The level of grift and propaganda has become so overwhelming, it's actually predictable.

Spreads:

2s-10s
9/15/2023: -69
9/22/2023: -66
9/29/2023: -44
10/06/2023: -30
10/13/2023: -41
10/20/2023: -14
10/27/2023: -15
11/03/2023: -26
11/10/2023: -43
11/17/2023: -44
11/24/2023: -45
12/01/2023: -34
12/08/2023: -48
12/15/2023: -53
12/22/2023: -41
12/29/2023: -35
1/5/2024: -35
1/12/2024: -18
1/19/2024: -24
1/26/2024: -19
2/2/2024: -33
2/9: -31
2/16: -34
2/23: -41
3/1: -35
3/8: -39
3/15: -41
3/22: -37
3/28: -39
4/5: -34
4/12: -38
4/19: -35
4/26: -29
5/3: -31
5/10: -37
5/17: -39
5/24: -47
5/31: -38
6/7: -44
6/14: -47
6/21: -45
6/28: -35
7/5: -32
7/12: -27
7/19: -24
7/26: -16
8/2: -08
8/9: -11
8/16: -17
8/23: -09
8/30: 00
9/6: +06
9/13: +09
9/20: +18
9/27: +20
10/4: +5
10/11: +13
10/18: +13
10/25: +14
11/1: +16
11/8: +5
11/15: +12
11/22: +4
11/29: +5
12/6: +5
12/13: +15
12/20: +22
12/27: +31
1/3: +32
1/10: +37
1/17: +34
1/24: +36
1/31: +36
2/7: +20
2/14: +21
2/21: +23
2/28: +25
3/7: +33
3/14: +29
3/21: +31
3/28: +38
4/4: +33
4/11: +52
4/17: +53
4/25: +55
5/2: +50
5/9: +49
5/16: +45
5/23: +51
5/30: +52
6/6: +48
6/13: +45
6/20: +48
6/27: +56
7/3: +47
7/11: +53
7/18: +56
7/25: +49
8/1: +54
8/8: +51
8/15: +58
8/22: +58
8/29: +64
9/5: +59
9/12: +50
9/19: +57
9/26: +57
10/3: +45
10/10: +53

Full Spectrum (30-days - 30-years)
9/15/2023: -109
9/22/2023: -99
9/29/2023: -82
10/06/2023: -64
10/13/2023: -82
10/20/2023: -47
10/27/2023: -54
11/03/2023: -76
11/10/2023: -80
11/17/2023: -93
11/24/2023: -95
12/01/2023: -105
12/08/2023: -123
12/15/2023: -154
12/22/2023: -149
12/29/2023: -157
1/5/2024: -133
1/12/2024: -135
1/19/2024: -118
1/26/2024: -116
2/2/2024: -127
2/9: -117
2/16: -103
2/23: -112
3/1: -121
3/8: -125
3/15: -109
3/22: -112
3/28: -115
4/5: -93
4/12: -87
4/19: -77
4/26: -70
5/3: -85
5/10: -87
5/17: -94
5/24: -99
5/31: -83
6/7: -92
6/14: -113
6/21: -103
6/28: -96
7/5: -101
7/12: -108
7/19: -103
7/26: -104
8/2: -143
8/9: -131
8/16: -138
8/23: -141
8/30: -121
9/6: -125
9/13: -117
9/20: -80
9/27: -80
10/4: -75
10/11: -58
10/18: -54
10/25: -38
11/1: -18
11/8: -23
11/15: -10
11/22: -12
11/29: -40
12/6: -23
12/13: +18
12/20: +29
12/27: +38
1/3: +38
1/10: +54
1/17: +41
1/24: +40
1/31: +36
2/7: +32
2/14: +32
2/21: +31
2/28: +13
3/7: +24
3/14: +25
3/21: +23
3/28: +26
4/4: +5
4/11: +38
4/17: +44
4/25: +40
5/2: +41
5/9: +46
5/16: +52
5/23: +68
5/30: +59
6/6: +69
6/13: +67
6/20: +69
6/27: +66
7/3: +51
7/11: +59
7/18: +65
7/25: +55
8/1: +32
8/8: +37
8/15: +44
8/22: +41
8/29: +51
9/5: +49
9/12: +40
9/19: +54
9/26: +55
10/3: +47
10/10: +43

Oil/Gas

WTI crude oil closed out the week at $57.84, down shrply from last week's Friday price of $60.36.

Money Daily has been calling for lower oil prices for at least the past year, and recently saying outright that the 50s were imminent, the reasons being twofold: slack demand and oversupply. It does not take a genius to figure that out. Markets have been in denial about the health of the global economy. It's breaking apart and breaking down. Lies and hope can't keep stocks, prices, and fake currencies up forever

The lower price for crude oil, running counter-cyclical to inflation, may be indicating something deeper and darker.

European economies in the largest countries - Germany France, Italy, England - are on the brink of economic collapse. Energy prices in those countries have nowhere to go but lower, as people essentially go broke just trying to fund everyday needs. While lower prices for crude oil and petrol may offer some relief, it's on the back of a manufacturing slowdown of depression-era proportions.

Nothing like a massive breakdown in oil prices to get a quick response from retail gas stations. U.S. gas prices slumped lower on Sunday, the national average at $3.05, according to Gasbuddy.com.

State-by-state numbers show California bucking the trend coming in a penny higher than last week, at $4.66 per gallon, followed by Washington, down four cents ($4.47). Oregon ($4.09), was also down three cents. The lowest prices remain in the Southeast, with Oklahoma ($2.51) hitting a seven-month low, followed by Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, all at $2.63, followed down by Louisiana ($2.64). The rest of the southern states are all below $2.83, with Florida also following, down sharply, to $2.89.

Most of the Northeast has yet to experience much in the way of relief, though New Hampshire ($2.96), Delaware ($2.96) and Rhode Island ($2.97) remained lower than the rest. Virginia ($2.95), West Virginia ($2.93), and Kentucky ($2.72) moved lower, joined by Ohio ($2.78) and Indiana ($2.85) and Michigan ($2.90). Illinois ($3.20), down 10 cents, is the only midwest state above $3. All midwest states from Wisconsin (lowest, at $2.70), Minnesota, and North Dakota south to Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado ($2.84) are well below $3/gallon. Wyoming joined the party at $2.94.

Sub-$3.00 gas can be found in 30 states, up four from last week, concentrated in the South and Midwest with Ohio, Michigan, and Florida below the line, along with Wyoming. The entire Southeast, out to New Mexico ($2.79) is under $3.00 a gallon. Gas in next door neighbor New Mexico is $3.44, making border hops appealing to cost-conscious drivers, though the gap continues to narrow.

Bitcoin

Early Sunday morning, bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $125,178.70. It has backed off some $2000+ dollars since.

This week: $112,895.70
Last week: $122,985.87
2 weeks ago: $109,980.20
6 months ago: $85,434.14
One year ago: $62,717.15
Five years ago: $13,798.80

Bitcoin got clubbed along with the stock market, hitting a low of $110,020 early Sunday. So much for it being a store of value, one of the many indicators for being actual money that it does not share with gold and silver, both of which were higher during the week and did not suffer a drawdown with stocks on Friday.

Year-to-date, bitcoin is up 21%, surpassed by gold (+51%), silver (+61%), and even eBay (+28%).

Precious Metals

Gold:Silver Ratio: 80.35; last week: 81.55 Silver/Gold %: 1.25%; last week: 1.23%

Per COMEX continuous contracts:

Gold price 9/12: $3,680.70
Gold price 9/19: $3,719.40
Gold price 9/26: $3,789.80
Gold price 10/3: $3,912.10
Gold price 10/10: $4,035.50

Silver price 9/12: $42.68
Silver price 9/19: $43.37
Silver price 9/26: $46.37
Silver price 10/3: $47.97
Silver price 10/10: $47.51

SPOT:
(stockcharts.com)
Gold 10/10: $4,015.59
Silver 10/10: $50.01

(Kitko)
Gold 10/10: Bid: 4,016.40; Ask: $4,018.40
Silver 10/10: Bid: $49.89; Ask: $50.01

The week saw silver make an historic rise above $50 at spot, reaching an all-time high, albeit for only moments, on Thursday morning before the riggers stepped in and brought it back down. Spot prices were dragged lower, but recovered, wiht the ask at 50.01 at the close on Friday. Silver was in backwardation at the COMEX, with future prices below spot through the week, but the chain itself was magically recified on Friday, as the current December contract is quoted laughably $47.51, and the further out contracts now higher, reaching as high as $49.87 a year out.

Anybody not buying these contracts is completely clueless. Spot prices are going well beyond $50 and, even if there's considation around this level, are likely to exceed $60 by April of 2026. The word got around that London's supply shortage was at a crisis level (almost empty), and silver was rushed via air from the United States. The destruction of London Loco, the LBMA, and the COMEX cannot happen soon enough. There's more than enough news about the long-overdue silver squeeze to fill a week's worht of posts. A few suggestions to get the low-down on what's happened and might soon happen are available from experts on the topic on youtube:

Live From the Vault with Andrew Maguire and Alisdair Macleod

Liberty and Finance: At $50, silver is just getting started.

Make sure to search on youtube for Michael Oliver, David Morgan and Craig Hemke. They have amazing insights.

At the end of this post, is a video by Chris Marcus of Arcadia Economics discussing the London Silver Short Squeeze.

Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (free shipping included, numismatics excluded):

Item/Price	Low	High	Average	Median
1 oz silver coin:	52.00	58.00	54.28	53.48
1 oz silver bar:	52.95	59.99	55.58	55.77
1 oz gold coin:	4,087.98	4,333.80	4,214.08	4,195.51
1 oz gold bar:	4,159.15	4,296.15	4,210.42	4,205.32

The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) made another new record high since Money Daily began recording in 2020, of $54.78, a healthy gain of $1.40 from the October 3 price of $53.38 per troy ounce.

For newbies, buying silver at $50 an ounce or slightly higher might be worthwhile and only available briefly. Online retailers have prices well above spot, which is unlikely to fall much unless there's a major global recession. Even then, your dollars, yen, euros, or pounds are likely to be worthless. Your silver, otherwise, will have real value.

WEEKEND WRAP

On Thursday, October 9, all hell broke loose when silver broke through $50 on the spot market and threatened $50 on the COMEX. Friday's stock market selloff was the response. The reason silver over $50 is an existential threat to the global cabal of central banks, Western governments, and fiat currencies dates back to 1873, when the U.S. passed the Coinage Act of 1873, de-monetizing silver (Crime of ’73), and, later, in 1964, when silver was taken out of the general currency.

Silver is the stake which strikes through the heart of the banking vampires, who have stolen wealth from the rest of the world for centuries.

If, shortly after 6:00 pm ET Sunday, when markets open in Japan and elsewhere in the East, the carnage spreads and contagion is the result, the global reset will have begun in earnest. While it may not be apparent at first opportunity, nothing other than gold, silver and some real estate will be safe. With Western economies crumbling to ashes, their fiat currencies with them, a global depression cannot be discounted enough.

For those who feel compelled, rewatching "The Big Short" and/or "Margin Call" while drinking heavily may provide at least some, however temporary, relief.

At the Close, Friday, October 10, 2025:
Dow: 45,479.60, -878.82 (-1.90%)
NASDAQ: 22,204.43, -820.19 (-3.56%)
S&P 500: 6,552.51, -182.60 (-2.71%)
NYSE Composite: 21,096.92, -451.35 (-2.
09%) Dow Transports: 15,067.87, -516.50 (-3.31%)

For the Week:
Dow: -1,278.68 (-2.73%)
NASDAQ: -576.08 (-2.53%)
S&P 500: -163.28 (-2.43%)
NYSE Composite: -628.49 (-2.89%)
Dow Transports: -772.74 (-4.88%)

Chris Marcus of Arcadia Economics discusses the London Silver Short Squeeze:

In case the video does not appear, here's the youtube link.

Disclaimer: Information disseminated on this site should not be construed as investment advice. Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily and it's owners, affiliates and/or employees are not investment advisors and do not offer specific investment advice. All investments have risk. You should consult a professional investment advisor or stock broker or use your individual judgement when making investment decisions. By viewing this site, you hold harmless Downtown Magazine Inc., Money Daily, its owners, affiliates and employees against any and all liability. Copyright 2025, Downtown Magazine Inc., all rights reserved.

Friday, October 10, 2025

Day 10: There's Something Very Wrong About American Media, Government, and Economy and Silver Backwardation is Pointing It Out

As the partial shutdown of the United States Incorporated Municipal Government Shutdown (refer to the Money Daily post of Friday, October 3, 2025 for more detail.) enters Day 10, it should be apparent to just about anyone that whatever the cabal in the District of Columbia are up to, it isn't having much effect anywhere, except, possibly, in financial markets, which yesterday received a wake-up call courtesy of the price of gold, silver, mining stocks, and backwardation in silver futures versus spot price.

As far as can be discerned, spot silver spiked to an all-time high of $51.24 at 9:10 am ET on Thursday, October 9. Precisely at 9:30 am ET, when the opening bell sounded on Wall Street, the futures price, which was already -$1.60 in backwardation at $49.64, began to plummet, eventually reaching an intraday low of $47.22 by midnight, and then falling to as low as $47.09 at 12:30 am on October 10. Those lows coincided with spot prices just after midnight (October 9-10) at $48.99.

Thus, backwardation had not be corrected (the normal alignment is called contango, with futures prices higher than spot.) and actually extended to -$1.90. This condition should not persist, because futures are generally assumed to be a cost-plus proposition, with buyers willing to pay more for a commodity for future delivery. Time, storage, interest, etc. all go into calculating that future price, which is generally higher the longer out the contract is extended.

For instance, the futures chain for gold, which is relatively consistent, has spot gold around $3,994, with the nearest futures contract at $4,010.90. As the futures chain progresses further out, the price rises, so that March, 2026, is $4,050, and June, 2026, is $4,099. That is normal, orderly contango.

Silver futures are below spot all the way out to September 2026 and they are all over the map. February, 2026 futures are at a laughable $47.88. July futures are a tad more realistic at $48.97, but, still well below spot.

To put this into perspective, ask yourself, if you just bought a 10-ounce bar of silver for $500, and a friend (and not a very good one, at that) came by and offered to buy that very same bar for $478.80 and pay you in February, what would you do?

That is apparently the current condition in the silver market. Vince Lanci explained this in a video on Thursday, suggesting that London vaults have been running dry and the backwardation encourages U.S. vault custodians to sell to London at spot and pocket the arbitraged difference between the futures price and spot, which could be very lucrative at $1.20-$1.60 or more per ounce. If the arbitrage is $1.50 profit, 100 of standard 1000-ounce bars would net out $150,000. However, as Lanci explains, the bullion banks in the U.S. aren't biting. They're holding onto their silver.

It doesn't make any sense if the futures are saying your silver will be worth less in the futures, unless the real signal from silver backwardation is telling the world that a recession is imminent. Otherwise, it's just more manipulation by big money players, generally assumed to be agents of the Federal Reserve or the federal government, most likely at the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF), which is, according to information on their own website:

The Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) consists of three types of assets: U.S. dollars, foreign currencies, and Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), which is an international reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund.

The ESF can be used to purchase or sell foreign currencies, to hold U.S. foreign exchange and Special Drawing Rights (SDR) assets, and to provide financing to foreign governments. All operations of the ESF require the explicit authorization of the Secretary of the Treasury ("the Secretary").

The Secretary is responsible for the formulation and implementation of U.S. international monetary and financial policy, including exchange market intervention policy. The ESF helps the Secretary to carry out these responsibilities. By law, the Secretary has considerable discretion in the use of ESF resources.

The legal basis of the ESF is the Gold Reserve Act of 1934. As amended in the late 1970s, the Act provides in part that "the Department of the Treasury has a stabilization fund …Consistent with the obligations of the Government in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on orderly exchange arrangements and an orderly system of exchange rates, the Secretary …, with the approval of the President, may deal in gold, foreign exchange, and other instruments of credit and securities.

Nobody would be the least bit surprised if "the Secretary", Scott Bessent, was instructing his minions at the ESF to do anything and everything they can to keep the price of silver below $50, which might include buying US$ to send the Dollar Index higher, which has an inverse effect on the prices of gold and silver.

Of course, that's just speculation. There could be any number of nefarious actors employed by Western central banks, the World Bank, IMF, etc. Central banks have generally favored gold over silver since 1873, when silver was essentially de-monetized via the Coinage Act of 1873, often referred to as "the Crime of '73".

In the larger scheme of things, bankers and big business interests love gold; individuals and small businesses prefer silver. This debate has been ongoing, behind the scenes, for decades, but, since the government caters to banks and big business (Wall Street), gold is the preferred standard, even though silver is plentiful and was used as currency (coins) as recently as 1964.

So, another question to ask yourself: If silver was MONEY back in 1964, why can't it be MONEY again in 2025?

Well, the obvious answer is because the government won't allow it. They want people to use PAPER in the form of Federal Reserve Notes, issued by the Fed, and basically unconstitutional, granted the power to create U.S. currency out of thin air by the U.S. congress.

But, upon further review, there is absolutely no reason why silver cannot be used as money, other than the government frowns upon the practice. It is going to happen, has already happened, and will continue to happen so long as the government and banking interests insist upon their fiat standards and perform magic tricks in financial markets like they do routinely with silver.

In a word, bankers HATE silver. Absolutely despise it, because it allows ordinary people to have and hold wealth without counter-party risk or obligation. Once an individual has silver in his or her hands, it is theirs and theirs alone and the government, which wants to track every human movement, especially those concerning financial transactions, can't track it.

Those are some of the reasons why silver isn't money. But, other than the government's insistence on keeping it an industrial metal only, there's no reason silver cannot be money. The United States may be a whole lot different than it was in 1964, but the people from 1964, compared to people in 2025, are essentially the same. They breathe air, eat food, walk, talk, and appreciate freedom, social, political, economic, and otherwise. Without silver in circulation as money - and the denial or partial stripping away of other basic rights - they're not economically free, which is why bitcoin has become so popular. Fair warning, however: the current administration, with the full support of congress, has accepted crypto-currency as "the future" of money, via the recently-passed GENIUS Act. The warning is that if the government supports something, it's probably not to your benefit.

There are many issues facing the United States these days, yet the federal government seems interested only in promoting foreign wars, strategically buying up shares of companies (essentially, fascism in real time), and keeping secrets from the American public, which, increasingly, is distrustful of its own government and seeks alternatives. It's not a good look.

The wild action in silver markets offer a sliver of the inner operations of the federal government, which has grown to gargantuan proportions, and today acts like it can do whatever it desires (despite being "shut down"), including imposing its will on states by sending in national guard troops, bailing out other countries, as it did Argentina this week, while prompting war with others, like Venezuela, all without the approval of the American public.

The public is just supposed to go to work, pay their bills and taxes and shut the hell up. Let the government, who knows better about everything, just do what it pleases. Sadly, that's the current attitude, but it's not what made the United States the greatest, most free country in the history of the world. People, not governments, nor presidents, nor bankers, made the United States a great country, and they will again, once silver exceeds $50 an ounce, and is freed from the constraints of government intervention, COMEX price suppression, and the LBMA. It's a tall order, but, those institutions appear to be creaking and cracking under pressure from the physical market and BRICS, especially China.

The physical market is best represented by eBay, which operates a vast open bazaar for bullion, coins, bars, and other valuables. Prices on ebay have fully disregarded the COMEX futures and are following spot prices, though, in reality, the market on eBay is becoming a price-setting mechanism that rivals anything else because it is a physical market with few constraints, those being the fees eBay collects on every transaction. It's a marvelous business. eBay is one of the best-performing stocks of this year, up 45%, despite being down 10% recently.

In effect, because of fees which can range from 10-15% or higher, prices paid on eBay actually support higher silver prices. The sellers have to pay those fees, so, at $50, the seller is only netting out $45 or less. It's the cost of doing business. It's doubtful any sellers, especially those which also operate their own online retail, like Scottsdale Mint, Bullion Exchanges, Apmex, Pinehurst, Ayden, Liberty, and many others, are losing money.

Dealers on eBay - and, on their own sites - are selling silver above $50 an ounce, often well above for quality items, and nowhere near the futures prices of $48 or $49. The COMEX stranglehold on gold and silver pricing is being broken by retailers, individual sellers, and buyers who understand value as opposed to price, and foreign exchanges outside of the London and the U.S..

In a nutshell, that's what ails America. The government wants control; the citizenry wants freedom. Logically, since the citizenry far outnumbers the government and supposedly elects the people who represent them in congress and the presidency, will vote with their wallets and purses, rejecting the slavery of debt-based currency in favor of honest money, gold and silver. The government will have no choice in the matter, though the possibility of confiscation, as they did in 1933 with gold, remains a final option for them.

Price suppression of gold and silver will no longer work.

This time is different.

* * * *

Well, as if the government shutdown wasn't already a major boondoggle, Rep. Jennifer Kiggans (R-VA) introduced, on September 16 (two weeks before the shutdown) The Pay Our Troops Act of 2026, which guarantees pay and allowances for:

Active-duty servicemembers, including members of the Coast Guard and Reserve Components;

Civilian personnel at the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security (for the Coast Guard) who directly support servicemembers; and

Contractors providing mission-essential support to servicemembers.

This figures to be a contentious issue, unless members of the Senate realize that they will be demonized as anti-American if they don't support this measure and make sure all military personnel - uniformed and civilian - get their paychecks on October 15. This is yet another reminder that the "shutdown" is completely fake, contrived, and previously agreed-to by Democrats and Republicans alike. The real kicker here is that civilians will get paid if the bill is passed in its current form. That is likely to result in loud protests from the federal employee unions, and possibly trigger a mass walk-out by the 750,000 or so federal employees working without pay. Sir Walter Scott reminds us, "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive," (Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field).

Whatever their purpose, all of institutional Washington D.C. is fully behind the shutdown and whatever results stem from it. In the meantime, the government apparently has enough money on hand to buy $20 billion worth of falling Argenitina pesos, ensuring that the hedge funds and billionaires who bought Argentina's bonds get paid. MAGA may now stand for "Make Argentina Grift Again.”

With the unusually buoyant stock markets set to open on Friday to close out the week, stock futures are higher (big surprise), bitcoin, gold, and silver are, for lack of a better term, "meh," and WTI crude is about to head down into the $50s, just before 9:00 am ET, at $60.12 and reeling.

While superficially - which is all the government and media have to offer - everything appears to be functioning normally, behind the scenes is chaos and rising levels of anxiety. The first ten days of the shutdown haven't caused any major disruptions. Next week, when federal employees don't get paid, things may begin to get more interesting.

Finally, and in as kindly a tone as possible, to all governments, just three words: "please go away."

At the Close, Thursday, October 9, 2025:
Dow: 46,358.42, -243.36 (-0.52%)
NASDAQ: 23,024.62, -18.75 (-0.08%)
S&P 500: 6,735.11, -18.61 (-0.28%)
NYSE Composite: 21,548.26, -177.55 (-0.82%)

Government Shutdown Day 9: At Last, Good News, IRS Sending Home Half of Workforce; Gold Holds Above $4,000, Silver Still Screaming for $50/ounce

As if they weren't deserving to be permanently removed as government employees, the IRS announced that roughly half of their staff - about 34,000 people - began to be furloughed on Wednesday. The temporary layoffs mostly affect call center workers, IT employees and HQ paper-pushers. The more relevant agents, auditors, and accountants will be working without pay, for now. Serves them right.

Other than the usual grumblings at airports, nothing has really changed in Washington, D.C., as it's difficult to tell whether the government is actually functioning or not these days. For the most part, when the federal government is officially "open", their roles are usually to point fingers at each other, cause headaches and paperwork for American citizens, jam up whatever business people are trying to run with endless regulations, and skim as much as possible without drawing fire from individuals and businesses while they spend far more than they receive in taxes.

For what it's worth, the federal government should be severely downsized at the vary least. President Trump tried to do that at the beginning of his second term, tasking Elon Musk with the job of running DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency. In the beginning, it sounded great and Musk took the task seriously, but various courts overruled many of Trump's decisions to terminate employees and Musk quit after just a few months, completely disgusted with the process.

It's a sad state of affairs when a billionaire, one known for his business savvy and ability to run private companies with minimal staff, works for free and can't get around the red tape and the courts to complete his work.

While the government is technically shot down - actually just lacking funding through November 21 - President Trump has mumbled about permanently firing laid off workers or not paying them for time worked or not worked during the shutdown. It amounts to mostly bluster and hot air, Trump's specialty. On the other hand, he's promised to pay the military during the shutdown, though that would require a separate bill and the House won't be back in session until Friday at the earliest, so it will probably be Monday to see if any action is taken on that proposal.

Paying the military might be a political football, as anybody voting against it would almost certainly be labeled unpatriotic. However, members of the military, who mostly hang around bases in far-flung locations or right in the United States aren't actively doing much fighting and might be considered by some to be "non-essential." If congress does pass legislation to pay them during the shutdown, it would amount to a slap in the face to the non-military employees who are working without pay. In terms of scoring points, it depends largely on which team is doing the scoring or threatening the other side. From a practical perspective, it's a double-edged sword. From the public's perspective, it's just more nonsense. A government that can't balance its own books and can't agree to how much money they're grifting and borrowing from the public, isn't worth supporting anyway.

Rather than strutting around like prized peacocks, the congress and the president should all be ashamed of themselves. They've managed to overspend to the tune of $37 trillion and now are threatening to shut down various government departments because they don't have enough money.

If the plan was to shame themselves into defaulting on loan obligations and disbanding, that would be one thing, but it's obviously too much to hope for. The elected congress is shameless. Maybe when a few of them can't catch a flight because there are no air-traffic controllers, they might come to their senses.

Since the shutdown is being viewed by Wall Street as simply theater of the absurd, stocks haven't shown any signs of stress. Actually, in most business circles, company executives are the most happy and productive when the government leaves them alone, so, a positive reaction, shuch as has been prevalent since the shutdown began last Wednesday, might not be wrong at all. Getting the government out of the way of doing business would probably add significantly to profit margins and help promote a competitive marketplace. Imagine not having to file endless, useless reports, or paying 15-30% off the top to Uncle Sugar.

As the shutdown continues, Wall Street shrugs along, with the S&P and NASDAQ setting new all-time highs on Wednesday after a slight pullback Tuesday. The SHiller PE (CAPE) closed out at 40.32 Wednesday, chasing the record of 44.19 from the dotcom craze in December 1999 (peak clown world).

Gold crossed the $4,000 Rubicon on Wednesday and has remained above it. Over at the COMEX rigging maching, silver still can't seem to find its way past $49 or $50, though silver is in backwardation presently with futures prices below spot. Normally, in contango, it's the other way around. It's an explosive condition, as the physical market is racing ahead of the controlled futures short-selling gambit that's dominated for the past 50 years. The only fools still shorting silver and gold are the Federal Reserve via their proxies at the bullion banks. They're being ruined on a minute-by-minute basis for resisting the obvious.

Neither gold nor silver is going to retreat any time soon. Perhaps, if the government re-opens, there might be a slight pullback in pricing, but as long as the Fed keeps pumping out fiat paper and the federal government keeps running $2 trillion deficits, the only way precious metals prices are going is up. How high they go depends on the level of emergency printing of money from thin air the Fed deems necessary to keep their 112-year old Ponzi scheme going.

With. a little more than a hlf hour to the opening bell, stock futures are flat-lining, gold has held above $4,000, bouncing around $4,060, with silver gaining, closing in on $49.00. $50 silver is inevitable. Standard sales of one-ounce silver bars and coins on eBay and online retailers are already in excess of $50. American Silver Eagles (ASE) are routinely selling for $52-55 and higher, depending on the mintage and condition. Numismatics are soaring.

A return to honest money seems to be accelerating, but the currency in place - yen, pounds, francs, euros, dollars - has to be almost completely debased before the people on the street demand something better. Until then, expect gold and silver to continue to higher, and probably, much higher, levels. People who were promoting $10,000 gold and triple-digit silver don't seem so extreme right now and they'll be much less reviled over the next few years. Because fiat currencies are backed by nothing, their comparison to gold and silver knows no upward bound. The more that is printed, the more precious metals will cost.

Until it all goes bust.

Like the man asked how it's going, falling from a 100-story skyscraper, "so far, so good."

At the Close, Wednesday, October 8, 2025:
Dow: 46,601.78, -1.20 (-0.00%)
NASDAQ: 23,043.38, +255.01 (+1.12%)
S&P 500: 6,753.72, +39.13 (+0.58%)
NYSE Composite: 21,725.81, +62.71 (+0.29%)

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Government Shutdown Day 8; Air-Traffic Controllers Seen as Possible Remedy; Gold Breaks Above $4,000, Silver Headed Toward $50

Of the few visible effects from the federal government shutdown - now in Day 8 - none stand out as prominently as flight delays and cancellations at airports across the United States, where air traffic controllers have been in short supply.

Already facing a long-standing shortage of controllers, the FAA continues to monitor the situation as workers call in sick rather than work without pay. It was the air traffic controllers who were responsible for ending the 2018-19 shutdown, when numbers of them began calling in sick as the government standoff reached its fifth week.

This time, having learned from the previous experience, the controllers may be taking swifter action. On Monday, Hollywood Burbank Airport was without any air traffic controllers for six hours. Reports continue to detail flight delays in airports across the country. Newark, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Nashville and elsewhere.

Thus far, neither the Republicans nor Democrats in the Senate have budged, nor has the president. The House remains in recess until March 14 as the airline industry begins to creak. Almost always operating at razor-thin margins, companies such as Delta, United, and Southwest can hardly afford disruptions, especially if the shutdown begins to be measured in weeks instead of days.

For now, there hasn't been much movement in airline stocks, though they began moving lower mid-September. They have enjoyed enormous gains in 2025, with United (UAL) up 72% year-to-date, Delta (DAL) up 57%, and even downtrodden American up 28% for the year.

On Tuesday, investors got a little reminder of just how overvalued stocks are, with all the major indices shedding some froth, though by the session's end, the losses had been minimized.

At the same time, gold breached the $4,000 mark early Tuesday and continued to ramp higher, hitting a high of $4,071 early Wednesday morning. Silver continues to follow dutifully along, reaching $48.83 overnight. Silver stackers are eager for a breakout above $50, though the riggers at the COMEX seem to have other ideas. There are some theories being shopped around that silver cannot be allowed to break though $50, the long-standing psychological high point set by the LBMA, COMEX, and others of the nefarious cult of fiat endorsers.

Suggesting that major banking interests and derivative plays are in danger of being triggered by a silver move above $50. It's probably not as big a deal as some are making it out to be, but the resistance dates back to 1979-80 and 2011, when silver approached the magic number and then fell precipitously from the highs by as much as 80%. The betting is that this time is different, though only those with a cynical attitude toward real money oppose that view. As far back as 1873 silver there has been a sustained effort to demonetize silver and classify it as only and industrial metal with no monetary value. Obviously, that is not the case. Already on ebay and at online precious metals retailers, it's nearly impossible to purchase silver in any quantity at a price below $50 per ounce. The physical market is making a mockery of the COMEX manipulation and, like a coiled spring, once silver breaches $50 to the upside, there may be no turning back.

Just a week into the shutdown, it's beginning to get interesting. There appears to be much more excitement in markets dead ahead.

After all, it is October.

At the Close, Tuesday, October 7, 2025:
Dow: 46,602.98, -91.99 (-0.20%)
NASDAQ: 22,788.36, -153.31 (-0.67%)
S&P 500: 6,714.59, -25.69 (-0.38%)
NYSE Composite: 21,663.10, -101.90 (-0.47%)

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Government Shutdown Day 7: No Progress in Senate; House Won't Return Until October 14; Gold, Silver Continue to Advance

The federal government shutdown that began on October 1 enters its seventh day on Tuesday, a week without work or pay for up to 750,000 laid-off, laid-back federal employees and a week of working without pay for the rest of the government's roughly two million employees deemed exempt or essential including members of the military and air traffic controllers.

The Senate failed to pass either of the bills that would continue funding the government until November 21 again on Monday. It was the fifth time the chamber voted on competing bills forwarded by Republican and Democrat leadership. The Republican bill remains in the framework of the bill passed by the House more than two weeks ago. The Democrat version adds in funding for health care. Neither are close to reaching the 60 votes needed for passage and neither side is making concessions or changes to their legislation.

Across the chamber, the House of Representatives isn't expected to return to session until October 14. House Speaker Mike Johnson insists that the House has done its job by passing funding legislation and is only awaiting their colleagues in the Senate to get their act together and send a bill to President Trump's desk for his signature.

None of that appears to be any closer to reality than it was a week ago, despite Trump's comments Monday that progress was being made in the Senate. Negotiations, according to most reliable sources, are not taking place. Finger-pointing and the usual useless rhetoric are in season as the shutdown becomes a political football and begins to be weaponized by the White House. The latest rumblings are coming from airlines and airports, where air traffic controllers are operating as skeleton crews. On Monday, Burbank Airport in California was without any air traffic controllers for about six hours due to shutdown-related scheduling.

Should air traffic controllers slow down operations or report sick en masse, as they have done in other shutdown situations, the standoff between the politicians might reach a compromise sooner. However, airlines are still seeing only minor delays without much disruption. The situation has not reached anywhere near critical, so the shutdown is expected to last at least another week.

Wall Street remains ambivalent towards its Washington counterparts. Stocks gained again on Monday, with the S&P and NASDAQ making all-time highs again. The Shiller PE (CAPE) continues to rise, ending Monday at 40.23.

Gold and silver continue along an inexorable path twoard $4,000 and $50.00, respectively. WTI Crude Oil finished higher on Monday, counter to the longer term bearish trend.

Stock futures point to another higher open.

Conditions have not grown serious enough to warrant selling of stocks, yet.

At the Close, Monday, October 6, 2025:
Dow: 46,694.97, -63.31 (-0.14%)
NASDAQ: 22,941.67, +161.16 (+0.71%)
S&P 500: 6,740.28, +24.49 (+0.36%)
NYSE Composite: 21,765.00, +39.60 (+0.18%)

Sunday, October 5, 2025

WEEKEND WRAP: Government Shutdown Day Five: Stocks, Gold, Silver Gain; Oil Lower; Trump Pressures States by Withholding Funds; Age of Delusion Persists

WEEKEND WRAP: Government Shutdown Day Five: Stocks, Gold, Silver Gain; Oil Lower; Trump Pressures States by Withholding Funds; Age of Delusion Persists

Sunday, October 5, 2025, 11:34 am ET

The federal government's game of musical chairs, combined with finger-pointing, grandstanding, and bluffing, will be a week old by Tuesday, but that's still probably too soon for financial markets to begin pondering outcomes. For now, life in the U.S.A. continues on without a hitch. President Trump has been calling in some markers, withholding funds from states, especially those earmarked for green energy projects, the most prominent being New York, which pledged to its "woke" constituency back when Andrew Cuomo was still governor, that it would be fully "green" by 2030.

Like all other government promises and projections, that one is likely to never come to fruition, but that's a discussion for another day. Presently, there isn't much that would indicate that anything has gone awry. It's probably going to take a statement from Treasury Secretary Bessent for anybody to notice the cracks widening in the economy because many of the usual benchmark data releases are not going to happen while various agencies are on furlough.

In essence, markets are flying blind, keeping up hopes that the political hacks in D.C. will come to their senses and make a deal - even if it's only good for six weeks - to fund their operations. That sentiment is not going to last much beyond a few more weeks if the shutdown persists. While stocks continued to make new highs, there has been some leakage of money flows into fixed income, and, more importantly, to gold, silver, and bitcoin.

Stocks

The NASDAQ's 230-point drop from the high to the low on Friday may have been a warning shot fired. Similarly, the S&P shedding 45 points before finishing up less than 0.02% for the day, served notice that conditions are worsening, or, to put it in more mundane parlance, "things are getting a bit dicey."

Stocks took the government shutdown with the usual whistle past the graveyard. The rally off the April tariff lows remains in place, but the failure of the Dow Transports to confirm the move to record highs on the Industrials has Dow Theorists losing some sleep, not that anybody has time nor patience for fundamental analysis anymore.

One of the variants of the government shutdown was that the BLS wasn't around to fool everybody with phony employment numbers from September. In stepped ADP on Wednesday, announcing that the private sector lost 32,000 jobs over the month and August was revised down by 43,000. Adding in the 600-750,000 government employees taking time off via the shutdown, the number of job losses since the end of July is closing in on a million, and that's not including the government contractors who will be putting some - if not all - workers on leave shortly.

The longer the government keeps the "out of order" signs posted, the worse the already weak employment sector of the economy is going to become. That's usually something Wall Street can redefine as a positive because when private companies do it, it lowers expenses and boosts the bottom line. This time may be different, though it's to be expected that the Big Kahunas of finance won't come right out and say so.

The week ahead, outside of the shutdown dynamics, offers the first glimpses of third quarter earnings from a number of key companies. The week following will see earnings season kick into high gear, starting with the banks, but let's not get too far ahead of the game. Here are some items of interest looking forward:

Monday, October 6: Constellation Brands (STZ) reports, OpenAI's DevDay developer conference kicks off.

Tuesday, October 7: McCormick (MKC) reports 3Q earnings. Consumer credit (August), Federal Reserve's Atlanta President Raphael Bostic, Vice Chair Michelle Bowman, Governor Stephen Miran and Minneapolis FedRes President Neel Kashkari all have speaking engagements. Amazon's (AMZN) Prime Big Deal Days Begin. U.S. August trade deficit delayed, not reporting.

Wednesday, October 8: Bassett Furniture (BSET) reports 3Q earnings; FOMC Minutes from September meeting; Fed Officials, including Fed Governor Michael Barr, St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem speak.

Thursday, October 9: PepsiCo (PEP), Delta Air Lines (DAL), Levi Strauss (LEVI), Applied Digital (APLD), Helen of Troy (HELE) report 3Q earnings. Initial jobless claims (Week ending 10/4), Wholesale Inventories for August will not be reported. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman are all expected to speak at Fed’s Community Bank Conference.

Friday, October 10: University of Michigan Consumer sentiment for October will be reported; Monthly U.S. federal budget for September may not be (still in doubt). Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee, St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem have speaking engagements.

The Shiller PE (CAPE) closed out the week at 40.08, a 25 year high (since the dotcom bubble)

Treasury Yield Curve Rates

Date	1 Mo	1.5 mo	2 Mo	3 Mo	4 Mo	6 Mo	1 Yr
08/29/2025	4.41	4.34	4.30	4.23	4.17	4.01	3.83
09/05/2025	4.29	4.24	4.24	4.07	4.05	3.85	3.65
09/12/2025	4.24	4.24	4.20	4.08	4.02	3.83	3.66
09/19/2025	4.19	4.16	4.14	4.03	3.98	3.81	3.60
09/26/2025	4.22	4.20	4.17	4.02	4.00	3.83	3.67
10/03/2025	4.24	4.17	4.11	4.03	3.96	3.82	3.64

Date	2 Yr	3 Yr	5 Yr	7 Yr	10 Yr	20 Yr	30 Yr
08/29/2025	3.59	3.58	3.68	3.92	4.23	4.86	4.92
09/05/2025	3.51	3.48	3.59	3.80	4.10	4.72	4.78
09/12/2025	3.56	3.52	3.63	3.81	4.06	4.65	4.68
09/19/2025	3.57	3.56	3.68	3.88	4.14	4.71	4.75
09/26/2025	3.63	3.66	3.76	3.96	4.20	4.74	4.77
10/03/2025	3.58	3.59	3.72	3.90	4.13	4.69	4.71

Yields on notes and bonds fell this week, with the bulk of the moves happening Monday, as the market correctly sensed the government shutdown and fled risk assets for the safety of treasuries. Of course, the moves in bonds were dwarfed by those in the gold and silver markets, which are becoming increasingly explosive.

There's some irony here, as treasury notes and bonds, being government obligations, saw buying just as the government itself begins to run out of funding. The longer the government remains in "partial shutdown" mode, the riskier these obligations become, bringing into play the ages-old dilemma of promises for return ON one's money becoming a question of return OF one's money. Sooner or later - and the odds seem to favor sooner - a major Western government is going to formally default and $$ trillions will be lost in a matter of hours or days. Once that genie leaves the bottle, there will be no turning back and the fiat currency regime that has now reached an advanced age of 54 years (1971-2025) will embark upon the final collapse.

In the meantime, whichever government is in control in the United States or The United States, still appears to be capable of compromise, to end the shutdown and get back to the business of wheedling away at the wealth of the nation. It's beginning to look like this is going to drag on a few more weeks at least, and that the drama hasn't really yet begun.

Spreads were compressed over the week, with full spectrum down from +55 to +47, and 2s-10s retreating 12 basis points, from +57 to +45, tying for the lowest since the tariff tantrum in April of this year. If spreads continue to decline, banks will no longer have healthy lending margins, which always leads to a liquidity crisis.

A lot has been said recently about "Curve Control" policies being implemented by the Fed in order to maintain market stability. That would invlove more purchases at treasuries at lower yields, which would go straight to its balance sheet, which has been reduced from nearly $9 trillion down to near $6.5 trillion over the past three years. If the Fed has to begin making more purchases - and bear in mind that they're technically bankrupt already - they will be doing so with "magic money" created out of thin air, something of which global markets have had a belly full in recent years.

Spreads:

Oil/Gas

WTI crude oil closed out the week at $60.36, down sharply from the close on 9/26 at $65.19. While the decline was "unexpected" to some people in the business of tracking oil prices, it was no surprise to those following technical analysis. Oil, from Brent to WTI to Russian oil sold to India, China, and elsewhere, remains in a long term bear market, dating back to June 2022, when it peaked at $118/barrel, and more recently, in September, 2023, reaching a peak of $90.79. Simple math says WTI crude is down a third from two years ago with no end to the price decline or a bottoming evidenced anywhere.

The lower price for crude oil, running counter-cyclical to inflation, may be indicating something deeper and darker than the otherwise bubbling stock market is telling. The suggestion is that the global economy - which, despite protestations from climate change true believers, still runs on coal, oli, and natural gas - has been slowing for the better part of two years. There's evidence in Europe, to be sure, though one wouldn't see the same structure. European oil prices have been rising steadily and only recently stabilized, since the outbreak of the conflict in Ukraine in February, 2022.

U.S. gas prices were moderately higher over the course of the week, the national average at $3.12 Sunday morning, according to Gasbuddy.com.

State-by-state numbers show California remaining on top, steady at $4.65 per gallon, followed by Washington ($4.51), which was six cents lower and joined in the $4 club by Oregon ($4.12), also down. The lowest prices remain in the Southeast, with Oklahoma ($2.55) ranging in a multi-month low, followed by Mississippi ($2.66), Louisiana ($2.70) and Arkansas.

The Northeast remained, as a bloc, above $3.00, though Delaware ($2.96) and New Hampshire ($2.98), breaking below. Virginia ($2.97), West Virginia ($2.94), and Kentucky ($2.81) remained lower, though Ohio surged slightly to $3.00. Indiana ($3.01), Michigan ($3.08), and Illinois ($3.30) are the only midwest states above $3. All midewest states from Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota south to Missouri, Kansas, and Colorado are below $3/gallon.

Sub-$3.00 gas can be found in 26 states, up one from last week, concentrated in the South and Midwest with Ohio and Florida back above the line, but Wyoming, New Hampshire and Delaware dropping below. The entire Southeast, out to New Mexico ($2.88) is under $3.00 a gallon. Gas in next door neighbor New Mexico is $3.54, making border hops appealing to cost-conscious drivers, though the gap has narrowed by 11 cents from last week.

Bitcoin

Early Sunday morning, bitcoin reached a new all-time high of $125,178.70. It has backed off some $2000+ dollars since.

This week: $122,985.87
Last week: $109,980.20
2 weeks ago: $115,734.60
6 months ago: $83,366.77
One year ago: $62,619.78
Five years ago: $11,295.51

Money will flow to bitcoin if there's some trouble in stocks. However, should there be margin calls on a severe market break, bitcoin will be one of the first assets sold, ahead of gold and silver, which are more likely, this time around, to be held onto by speculators and anybody with functioning brains.

Precious Metals

Gold:Silver Ratio: 81.55; last week: 81.73

Per COMEX continuous contracts:

Gold price 9/5: $3,639.80
Gold price 9/12: $3,680.70
Gold price 9/19: $3,719.40
Gold price 9/26: $3,789.80
Gold price 10/3: $3,912.10

Silver price 9/5: $41.51
Silver price 9/12: $42.68
Silver price 9/19: $43.37
Silver price 9/26: $46.37
Silver price 10/3: $47.97

Money Daily's weekly survey on eBay and a quick price hunt on a number of online dealers revealed that silver cannot be purchased, except in large quantities or under unusual circumstances, for less than $50 per ounce, nor can gold be had under $4,000. The confluence of events, including a shortage in silver bullion, the government shutdown, recent and ongoing efforts by China, via the Shanghai Metals Exchange and vaulting facilities being readied in Hong Kong, Dubai and elsewhere, have turned the tables on the London price fixes, LBMA, and COMEX operations. Increasingly, gold, silver, platinum, and palladium price are being set elsewhere, reflecting a fundamental shift in global economies. Silver, especially, has been making record highs in just about every country except for the United States, which continues to maintain short positions, costing billions of dollars. Eventually, the U.S. is going to have to stop their foolish suppression games or pay severe consequences.

Prices continue to rise, and now that investment advisors are recommending 15-25% allocation to precious metals to their high net worth clients, prices will, almost without a doubt, skyrocket. There have been no pullbacks and nothing short of a major war or stock market crash can cause any. Even then, gold and silver might actually explode even higher as safe-haven assets. Those who have been patiently stacking and hoarding are soon to experience great financial rewards.

Here are the most recent prices for common one ounce gold and silver items sold on eBay (free shipping included, numismatics excluded):

Item/Price	Low	High	Average	Median
1 oz silver coin:	49.95	59.00	53.40	52.38
1 oz silver bar:	49.95	58.00	53.48	54.27
1 oz gold coin:	3,985.51	4,166.61	4,067.79	4,071.24
1 oz gold bar:	3,959.99	4,101.60	4,055.58	4,065.08

The Single Ounce Silver Market Price Benchmark (SOSMPB) made another new record high since Money Daily began recording in 2020, of $53.38, a healthy gain of $1.34 from the September 28 price of $52.04 per troy ounce.

Gold and silver continued to move higher, with silver leading the way over the near term. Year-to-date, gold is up 48.01%; silver, 64.06%, both up six weeks running as of Friday closes on the COMEX.

Speaking of the COMEX, silver is currently, and has been for a few weeks, in backwardation, a condition where the spot price is higher than the futures price. It was reported on Saturday that there is not a single out of silver available to short on the market, a condition, for all intents and purposes, has never occurred before. Additionally, the criminals at the COMEX raised margin requirements for all gold and silver contracts, but apparently not enough to slow down price gains. The CME and COMEX may have to resort to tactics last deployed in early 1980, as a response to the attempt by brothers Nelson Bunker Hunt, William Herbert Hunt and Lamar Hunt (collectively known as the Hunt Brothers) to corner the silver market.

As the story goes, on January 7, 1980, the COMEX board of governors announced that it would cap the size of silver futures exposure to 3 million ounces. Those in excess of the cap (Bunker was long on 45 million ounces; Herbert held contracts for 20 million) were given until the following month to bring themselves into compliance. That was too long a wait for the Chicago Board of Trade exchange, which suspended the issue of any new silver futures on January 21. Silver futures traders would only be allowed to square up old contracts. Silver contracts were "sell only."

The price of silver falling at an accelerated pace, the Hunt's were issued margin calls. The Bache Group wanted $100 more in collateral for the money they had lent the Hunts. On March 27, 1980, which has become known as "Silver Thursday", the price of silver fell to $10.80 per ounce, off a high of $50.42 in January. The Hunt Brothers were all but wiped out, reportedly losing over a billion dollars in one day, prompting Bunker to famously say, "a billion dollars ain't what it used to be."

WEEKEND WRAP

When everything blows up again, because it always does and this bubble bursting should be spectacular, maybe somebody like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg will say, "a trillion dollars isn't what it used to be," an object lesson for us all, proceeding through the age of delusion.

At the Close, Friday, October 3, 2025:
Dow: 46,758.28, +238.56 (+0.51%)
NASDAQ: 22,780.51, -63.54 (-0.28%)
S&P 500: 6,715.79, +0.44 (+0.01%)
NYSE Composite: 21,725.40, +117.43 (+0.54%)

For the Week:
Dow: +510.99 (+1.10%)
NASDAQ: +296.44 (+1.32%)
S&P 500: +72.09 (+1.09%)
NYSE Composite: +247.89 (+1.15%)
Dow Transports: +110.09 (+0.70%)

Friday, October 3, 2025

Day Three of the United States Incorporated Municipal Government Shutdown; Nothing Can Stop Gold, Silver Gains or Crude Oil's Decline

Editor's Note: Just about everything in this post relates to information gleaned from the video at the end. It is the intent of Money Daily to present information that is honest and truthful. Because of the complexities of the background information, some of what is presented in context may or may not be entirely correct, but, it is intended to supply an explanation of the current conditions as accurately as possible. Readers should be advised, as always, to do their own due diligence.

Well, everything in The United States of America Unincorporated appears to be just going swimmingly, and, that's because the "government shutdown" pertains to only the United States Incorporated Municipal Government based in Washington, D.C.

Pay attention to the names and capitalization of the "t" or "T" in "the" or "The" because it's important. See the video below for (some) clarification. It's indeed confusing.

In any case, the federal government, which is "the United States Incorporated Municipal Government" is what's supposedly shut down. If that is the case, the actual The United States - composed of the 50 individual sovereign states should be in charge of the affairs of the country. Being that the states themselves have become, quite literally and incorrectly, vassals of the federal government, the situation has become quite dicey and explains why President Trump was able to withold $18 billion in infrastructure funds from New York along with millions in counterterrorism funding for New York City.

If the "government" is shut down, how is it that Trump can do this? Simply, the United States Incorporated Municipal Government Shutdown, aka the federal government, isn't actually shut down, it is just operating with limited funds. Trump's withholding of funds to states, non-payment of essential workers and furloughs of roughly 750,000 non-essential employees are within his bailiwick. The president must do what he can to preserve funds in order to pay current bills, so, expect more of this kind of activity the longer the shutdown lasts.

If the government cannot find a way to resolve itself, it will indeed become bankrupt and will default on all kinds of contractual obligations like paying interest on loans, which is probably at the very root of this operation. As far as can be told, if the federal government, as it is currently constituted, defaults on obligations, the federal government, unable to function as an ongoing entity, will cease to exist, and then, and only then, will The United States of America Unincorporated be able to rightfully return to operation of the country under business entities known as the States of America Unincorporated Confederation and the United States Unincorporated Federal Republic, which have not bene functional since the Civil War.

If, at this point, you're confused, that's entirely understandable. The video below explains much of this, but, it's only a starting point. Money Daily is committed to educating itself and its readers, though the process in this time of crisis - and, despite outward appearances, this is a crisis, a constitutional crisis, though which one, of the three that exist, is uncertain - is bound to be laborious and sometimes veer off into unknown territories of knowledge.

Whatever the case, this is the understanding of what's currently underway, and, it may actually have a positive end game. The shutdown was seemingly engineered by the Senate. By failing to approve the bill forwarded by the House, lacking the 60 votes need to overcome a filibuster, they set the stage for the government to operate without funding, curtailing the ability to appropriate funds to the various agencies. While the government can operate only on funds currently in the coffers of the U.S. Treasury, borrowing, via auctions of treasury bills, notes, or bonds, would be a moot point until funding is approved. The money may be there, but it cannot be dispensed.

It's like a father holding his son's allowance until he finishes mowing the lawn and taking out the trash. The money's there. It's just not going to be doled out (appropriated).

The long game in this shutdown drama (we hope) is for the government to eventually default, or, at least, judging by the actions of the president, Senate, and the House, that's the impression. The government is purposely destroying itself, or, as the case may be, the part of it that has usurped power since the Civil War.

Bear in mind that President Trump is trying to withhold funds from states as much as he can, in effect, saving what's already been approved by congress from being spent. He will need that money to operate those parts of the government that he chooses to keep functioning. Additionally, nothing is going to happen until both houses of congress are back in session, because they need, at some point, to work out an funding package, or, at least that's the optics at present. Whether that is the master plan - to default - is not presently discernible, but, since neither house will be in session until Monday, October 6, when the Senate returns, the shutdown will last at least through this weekend. On Tuesday, October 7, the House reconvenes and will be in session, along with the Senate until Friday, October 10, according to Roll Call's handy congressional calendar [PDF].

In the meantime, life goes on in the markets with or without government interference. The usual first Friday of the month Non-farm Payroll numbers will not be available today, since the BLS is one of the agencies not currently operational. It's probably good timing, since the report for September, despite having its usual unreliable data, was likely to be somewhat distressing, showing the country actually losing jobs rather than creating them. For what it's worth, investors will have to fall back to the ADP monthly employment report, issued on Wednesday, for guidance concerning the current employment picture.

ADP's September report was less-than-encouraging, showing a loss of 32,000 jobs in the private sector. Additionally, ADP conducted a preliminary re-benchmarking of the National Employment Report based on full-year 2024 results from the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), resulting in a reduction of 43,000 jobs in the September report while revising August 2025 from 54,000 to -3,000. Just like that, 97,000 jobs went "poof."

Wall Street, whistling past the grave as it always does, completely ignored the implications of a shrinking labor force and powered to record highs again on Thursday, focusing on the AI hype machine to keep stocks floating. It's worth pointing out that while AI promises all manner of improvements to human existence, little has been achieved other than big tech companies like Google, Microsoft, Apple, et. al., promising to spend $$ billions on infrastructure including massive server farms and power generating facilities. Implementation of AI as the entry point to search engines, particularly Bing and Google, have served only to privide dodgy information and anger a horde of webmasters who feel they are not being compensated for information they've provided.

Stocks have performed admirably in the face of the government shutdown. Through Thursday's close, the Dow is up 272 points, NASDAQ ahead by 360, and the S&P up 71. The S&P set another record high close on Thursday, sending the Shiller PE (CAPE) to 40.08, the second-highest level on record.

Other than being hammered down on the COMEX twice this week, first, on Tuesday overnight and again, savagely, on Thursday during New York hours, gold and silver also advanced nicely through the carnage. An hour before the opening bell for stocks, gold is $3,885 and silver, $47.48 per ounce. Price gains in precious metals recently have been satisfactory, but may be presaging the kind of wild swings that will happen when currencies begin failing, which could be soon, as in months, not years, though those kinds of events are usually delayed by major wars, which the world - at least from a Western perspective - seems hellbent towards.

Bitcoin received quite a boost through the week of the shutdown, adding about $8,000 to quote over $120,000, the highest in six weeks. Similar to the AI chorus of cheerleading, bitcoin proponents continue to harp on about how the vaporware that is crypto is undervalued, some suggesting bitcoin's true price should be upwards of $200,000 or $1 million. These dreamers may actually be proven right in the case of a government default.

WTI crude oil is having a rough week, with the price per barrel looking to fall below $60, a weekly decline of about 10 percent. The combination of an enormous supply glut, slack or declining demand, and higher production quotas for OPEC are beginning to be realized. WTI at $50-55 or lower looks to be dead ahead.

With all of the current confusion, headwinds and tailwinds, stock futures are set up for a positive, though sliding toward unchanged, open. Dow futures: +62; NASDAQ futures: +14, S&P futures: +4.

OK, ready to get really confused about what's really going on in the country known as The United States of America? Watch...

At the Close, Thursday, October 2, 2025:
Dow: 46,519.72, +78.62 (+0.17%)
NASDAQ: 22,844.05, +88.89 (+0.39%)
S&P 500: 6,715.35, +4.15 (+0.06%)
NYSE Composite: 21,607.97, -32.03 (-0.15%)

Government Shutdown, Day Two: Nobody Cares, Stocks Higher; Gold, Silver Up, Crude Oil, Gas Prices Lower

In September and August 2000, the dividend yield on the S&P 500 fell to an all-time low of 1.11%. As of September 30, that figure is 1.19%.

In layman's terms, that means if you invested in a company with that kind of yield, outside of gains in the share price, it would take about 84 years to get your money back. If one were to reinvest the dividends annually, it might lower the time period to about 58 years. Naturally, one would hope the stock increased in value by many multiples over that period of time.

The average share of stock traded on the NYSE is held for something like 17 minutes. Dividend yield matters only to people or institutions with extremely long investment horizons, but this extremely low level of dividend yield for S&P stocks only serves to feed into the theory that stocks are completely, brazenly, overvalued and this is the largest ever bubble that's ever existed.

In the current environment, dividends don't matter.

The Bloomberg market wrap headline after Wednesday's close: Stocks Hit Record as Traders Shrug Off US Shutdown. That pretty much says it all. This government "shutdown", of whatever one wishes to call it, is a very large charade, engineered by the very people elected by the U.S. citizenry to keep the government operational and providing benefits to the country.

OK, you can stop laughing now. Everybody knows that congress and the president are more interested in passing legislation that benefits themselves first, their cronies and campaign contributors second, and Joe and Jane Sixpack, last. Whatever it is they (the uniparty) expect to accomplish with this deep state deep fake, Wall Street seems to be all in favor of it, because, rather than selling stocks in a kind of safety trade, stocks hit record highs on Day 1 of the Great Government Shutdown of 2025.

So, when people working in the private sector recieve their paychecks today, tomorrow, or next week, they need to ask these stupid questions:

1. If the government is shut down, where does the tax taken out of my paycheck go?

2. Under what authority are they taking money out of my paycheck?

Answers:

1. Nobody knows.

2. You let them.

There are no stupid questions; just stupid people asking.

Day Two of the government shutdown starts with stock futures diverging, though the NASDAQ futures are soaring, up 140 points at 8:30 am ET. S&P futures are up 17, while Dow futures are down 21.

Gold and silver essentially treaded water overnight. Earlier this morning, gold trade as high as $3,916.80 on the COMEX and silver hit $47.80. WTI crude has been beaten down recently, reflecting revisions by the EIA showing a sizable glut of crude on the market and OPEC raising production quotas. WTI dipped briefly below $61/barrel this morning and is trading just above that level an hour prior to the cash open for stocks.

Gas prices around the U.S. are slightly higher today, skewed by the West coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington, which are all averaging over $4.00. If those are excluded the national average - today at $3.16 - would be under $3.00. States in the Southeast, in particular, have been below $3.00 for a year or longer. When WTI finally catches down into the 50s, gas prices in places like Mississippi and Oklahoma may fall below $2 per gallon.

Despite claims of the horrors of a government shutdown, nothing seemed to change noticeably on Wednesday nor early Thursday morning. There were no plane crashes other than a runway collision at low speed, no injuries other than the aircraft, at LaGuardia Wednesday night. Mail was delivered mostly on time. Amtrak trains ran late, as usual. Social Security checks went out, food stamps were redeemed around the country.

The Government Shutdown of 2025 has the potential of receiving the "nothingburger" moniker, except for Trump threatening to permanently fire hundreds of thousands of useless, non-essential government workers "in a day or two" according to the White House. Democrats don't seem particularly interested in getting the government re-opened any time soon.

Wall Street is juiced again over AI, the hype machine working overtime. Trillions are going into technology. Apparently, the billionaire oligarchs believe AI will bring massive improvements to humanity.

Green lights, everywhere. What could go wrong?

At the Close, Wednesday, October 1, 2025:
Dow: 46,441.10, +43.21 (+0.09%)
NAADAQ: 22,755.16, +95.15 (+0.42%)
S&P 500: 6,711.20, +22.74 (+0.34%)
NYSE Composite: 21,640.00, +75.46 (+0.35%)

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Government Shutdown Day One; What Happens Next? Stock Futures Lower; Gold, Silver Continue Moving Higher

Though they made it look like they were trying by voting on both the Democrat proposal and House bill late Tuesday, the Senate failed to advance any bill, effectively leaving the federal government temporarily unfunded, shutting down the government for the first time, ironically, since Trump was president back in his first term (2018-19).

At the stroke of midnight, the government officially shut down, partially. Many so-called "essential services" remain open.

The government shutdown is likely have a dramatic impact on the U.S. economy. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that a shutdown could furlough roughly 750,000 federal workers each day, resulting in non-payment of about $400 million in wages daily. Employees deemed essential, such as those in national security, law enforcement and air traffic control, would be required to report to work without pay until funding resumes. The U.S. Postal Service remains open. Social Security checks and

Past shutdowns have led to closed national parks, slowed passport processing, delayed small-business loans, disruptions in food safety inspections, and delays and/or flight cancllations at airports around the country. Government closures have cost the economy billions of dollars though employees who are temporarily laid off eventually recieve their back pay. Thus, a government shutdown is like a paid holiday for many federal employees, except that they get paid when they return to work.

This one has a bit of a different odor to it. Democrats say they are digging in their heels over cuts to Medicaid that would be of benefit to illegal migrants and make COVID-era Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits permanent. They are looking to restore $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion cut from Medicaid and Obamacare programs that were lost via the passage of President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" this past summer.

For their part, Republicans aren't budging either. They insist that spending taxpayer dollars on illegals is wasteful and treats taxpayers poorly. There are few people who would disagree with them on that point, yet, Democrats are insistent on restoring the funds. It feels more like a "uniparty" set-up, wherein both parties made purposeful arrangements to shut down the government and bust the economy. It won't take much to send the U.S. economy into a tailspin. Between the usual infighting in congress, Trump's tariffs, the worsening national employment situation, high inflation, and the general committment to continue funding killing fields in Gaza and Ukraine, a few weeks of the U.S. government without money, off its training wheels, so to speak, should tank it heading into the fourth quarter, which began Wednesday, along with the government's 2026 fiscal year.

While that may sound conspiratorial, the bigger picture suggests that is exactly what is happening. Even the Democrats cannot be so blatantly ignorant to shut down the government over funding for illegals that expire at the end of the year. As it stands, the proposal passed by the House and declined by the Senate would only have funded the government through November 21, or just more than seven weeks.

Both sides will try to lay blame for the shutdown on the opposing party, but the truth is that Republicans and Democrats alike are responsible for the massive deficits of the past decade and nobody in congress is willing to make the necessary cuts to government that the country needs to at least cut back deficit spending to something more reasonable, like $500 billion, rather than the projected $2 trillion the government will overspend in fiscal 2026.

Elected officials are sent to Washington to work for the people, but, for far too long, members of congress have treated themselves to the largesse of government through gross abuses, graft, and corruption, at the people's expense. There's a growing chorus of everyday Americans that wish the government would close up shop and stay closed. They want government to get out of the way and let Americans fend for themselves, without the overwhelmeing burdens of taxes and regulations that stand in the way of growth and prosperity for hundreds of millions of people.

It's important to keep in mind that the government shutdown, all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the media, all the finger-pointing and recriminations are the work of the government itself and they should bear responsibility for whatever befalls the nation, no matter how severe the punishment.

In the meantime, Wall Street chose to sail past the crisis on Tuesday as if nothing was happening. Wednesday, the first day of the country run off its rails, effectively without a government, might begin to reveal a much different tone.

There are some aspects to the government shutdown that are just plain silly. For instance, people living in the Eastern or Central time zones should appreaciate the fact that the governent shut down in Washington, D.C. before the Dodgers took the field in Los Angeles for Game One of the National League Wild Card series with the Cincinnati Reds. It's so typically American to just plain not give a damn about politicians when there's a sports game at the same time. One would suppose that if the Russians nuked New York City, all the NFL teams except the Giants and Jets and whichever teams they were supposed to play would just take the field as usual on Sunday, Monday, and even Thursday night.

Whether or not one considers that dark humor amusing isn't the point. The point is that Americans, in their own self-abusing manners, prefer athletes to politicians almost every time.

Equally amusing and hinting that this shutdown was planned by both parties well in advance is that the House of Representatives isn't even in session [PDF] until October 7, and the Senate, after a single session on Wednesday (incidentally, Yom Kippur for all you Jew haters and anti-Semites) doesn't return until October 6. So, even if the Senate magically came to some kind of deal, the House couldn't even muster a up quorum. The crooks in congress can't even engineer a solid false flag crisis anymore, proving just how incompetent they really are.

For those wondering what's open, what's closed and what else, Politico offers a fairly extensive review.

As the opening bell approaches, stock futures are trending lower. Dow: -130; S&P: -28; NASDAQ: -117.

Gold is continuing to make all-time highs, around $3,897.70 at 9:00 am ET. Silver also ramped higher overnight, settling in around $47.50 prior to the stock market open.

J.P. Morgan has published a $6,000 target for gold, while Jefferies has gone even further, predicting $6,500. In all honesty, gold and silver have no limits. As long as governments continue debaing their currencies, the prices of precious metals will continue to rise in relation to them. In the end, when all fiat currencies fail - and they will - gold will be revalued at something in the range of $20-30,000 and silver will be easily triple digits, probably $400-$500 per ounce. Get ready for it. The current gains are nothing to when the final reset occurs.

The shutdown could last days, weeks, or months, depending on how deeply the government wishes to harm itself and its citizens.

At the Close, Tuesday, September 30, 2025:
Dow: 46,397.89, +81.82 (+0.18%)
NASDAQ: 22,660.01, +68.86 (+0.30%)
S&P 500: 6,688.46, +27.25 (+0.41%)
NYSE Composite: 21,564.54, +66.99 (+0.31%)

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Tuesday is Day Zero. Wednesday is Day One. Watch. Wait. See What Develops

All indications point to the last day of September and the first day of October to be significant dates in American history.

Events are converging toward some kind of radical shift or change which only those at the very epitome of the global power structure comprehend because they are the very ones driving the events. The federal government's 2025 fiscal year ends on the 30th of September, today. The 2026 fiscal year begins on October 30, tomorrow.

Speculation has run the gamut on what's to occur from a government shutdown to the launch of World War III. Tuesday's meeting of top U.S. commanders with the rank of brigadier general and the naval equivalent, admiral, or higher, at Quntico, Virginia is also driving fears that President Trump - who is reportedly attending the meeting - and Department of Defense (recently changed by executive order to Department of War) head Pete Hegseth will be informing these high-ranking officers of battle plans military strategies.

While the gathering of top military personnel is not unusual, the timing, haste, and degree of this one has raised eyebrows among military observers and the general public. The White House has commented on the meeting, downplaying its importance. However, if anything has been learned from the first eight months of Trump's presidency, it thrives on secrecy and deception, so, the idea that this high-level meeting is about morale or downsizing or anything remotely ordinary is highly unlikely. Something's going on, and the public isn't allowed ot know what it is, which generally means that it's significant.

With a government shutdown at midnight on Tuesday a virtual lock, the military meeting could signal the beginning of martial law in the United States, which, considering how Trump has called for national guard troops to begin restoring order in big cities - from Chicago, to Portland, to Memphis - may not be so far-fetched.

Of course, it could be nothing more than posturing, to satiate allies in Europe and Asia (Japan, South Korea, Australia), but it doesn't appear to be something to be taken lightly.

In case the government does shut down - and that seems to be where this is headed ater Trump met with the leaders of both parties from the House and Senate on Monday and no progress was reported - here's a salient question that every American should ponder:

If the government, already $37 trillion in debt, does shut down at 00:00:01 Wednesday morning and has no funding for further operations, what authority do they actually wield?

As Day Zero unfolds, it might be useful to keep a sharp eye on the stock and bond markets, especially the latter, since that is where all the truly big money changes hands. If yields begin to ramp higher, it might be a signal that money is fleeing even the non-risk asset of treasury bills, notes and bonds. Declines on the stock market could also be a telling sign on Tuesday, though there is the distinct possibility that little will happen until Wednesday, when and if a government shutdown becomes a reality.

Yields on longer-dated maturities - 10s, 20s, and 30s, were lower on Monday and are trending lower early Tuesday, with the 10-year at 4.12%, down from 4.20% at the close, Friday.

Monday's action in stocks was nothing unusual, with all the major indices posting small gains. Other than the S&P closing with a number bearing the mark of the beast (6,661.21), there was nothing exciting or ominous about the stock market. In the face of what may be cataclysm, everything appeared calm, which, in an of itself, should serve as ample warning.

Heading into Tuesday's open, stock futures are down marginally. Dow: -55; NASDAQ: -18; S&P: -8. Gold and silver are off their recent highs, with gold nearly hitting $3,900 overnight, now leveled off around $3,842.40, and silver, having shot up as high as $47.34, is down around a dollar, at $46.35. WTI crude is well off recent fluffy highs, heading below $62/barrel.

Keep in mind that, even though Trump wanted to be known as a "peace president", he's been anything but. His boasting about ending seven wars (please, name three) in the face of continuing the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, falls on deaf ears.

Stay focused. Wait, watch, see what develops.

At the Close, Monday, September 29, 2025:
Dow: 46,316.07, +68.78 (+0.15%)
NASDAQ: 22,591.15, +107.09 (+0.48%)
S&P 500: 6,661.21, +17.51 (+0.26%)
NYSE Composite: 21,497.55, +20.04 (+0.09%)

Money Daily

Sunday, October 12, 2025

WEEKEND WRAP: London Silver Short Squeeze; Stocks Wrecked in Response on China Tariff Talk; Ways to Survive -and Thrive - Through Government Collapse

Friday, October 10, 2025

Day 10: There's Something Very Wrong About American Media, Government, and Economy and Silver Backwardation is Pointing It Out

Government Shutdown Day 9: At Last, Good News, IRS Sending Home Half of Workforce; Gold Holds Above $4,000, Silver Still Screaming for $50/ounce

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Government Shutdown Day 8; Air-Traffic Controllers Seen as Possible Remedy; Gold Breaks Above $4,000, Silver Headed Toward $50

Tuesday, October 7, 2025

Government Shutdown Day 7: No Progress in Senate; House Won't Return Until October 14; Gold, Silver Continue to Advance

Sunday, October 5, 2025

WEEKEND WRAP: Government Shutdown Day Five: Stocks, Gold, Silver Gain; Oil Lower; Trump Pressures States by Withholding Funds; Age of Delusion Persists

Friday, October 3, 2025

Day Three of the United States Incorporated Municipal Government Shutdown; Nothing Can Stop Gold, Silver Gains or Crude Oil's Decline

Government Shutdown, Day Two: Nobody Cares, Stocks Higher; Gold, Silver Up, Crude Oil, Gas Prices Lower

Wednesday, October 1, 2025

Government Shutdown Day One; What Happens Next? Stock Futures Lower; Gold, Silver Continue Moving Higher

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

Tuesday is Day Zero. Wednesday is Day One. Watch. Wait. See What Develops

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