Recently, the price of a Bitcoin has skyrocketed. Two explanations suggest themselves…

“Almost nine years later, household debt has finally exceeded its 2008 peak. This record debt level is neither a reason to celebrate nor a cause for alarm. But it does provide an opportune moment to consider debt performance,” said Donghoon Lee, Research Officer at the New York Fed.

The average gasoline tax in the U.S. is 49.5 cents per gallon, according to data from the American Petroleum Institute. That’s not too bad as far as averages go, but it has been climbing over the last five years and it will continue rising as states lose hope that the federal government will chip in for infrastructure construction and maintenance, and transportation.

“The automakers have flooded the market…”

For the 17th week in a row (longest stretch in 6 years), the number of US oil rigs rose (by 9 to 712). This is the highest since April 2015 as US Crude production follows its lead to within 2% of record highs…

The system used by the Dept. of Education to collect on defaulted student loans came to a standstill in the last month, leaving an estimated 91,000 accounts in limbo, when the agency ordered debt collectors under contract to stop making collections on accounts. Consumers who expected their student loan payments to be deducted from their bank accounts this month have reportedly found the funds untouched, and their calls to the companies unanswered thanks to a Department of Education’s order prohibiting the debt collection companies from working on default accounts in response to two lawsuits against the agency.

So far we’ve seen roughly 3,000 store closings announced in 2017, and Credit Suisse estimates that could hit 8,600 by the end of the year. That would easily surpass 2008’s total, which was 6,200 closings, to be the worst year in recent memory…

The grocery business in the U.S. is, and always has been, a fairly miserable one. In fact, from A&P to Grand Union, Dahl’s, etc., bankruptcy courts have been littered with the industry’s failures for decades. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse.

“…More than 4 in 10 Americans with debt (45%) spend up to half of their monthly income on debt repayment…”

There are a lot of news reports today about Trump’s decision to impose stiff tariffs on American companies (home builders) who buy Canadian lumber. But, it is more accurate to report that Trump has just slapped stiff 20% tariffs (lumber taxes) on the American people, not Canada.

While most mall owners have been worrying about how to fill up the inside of their stores after a litany of retail bankruptcies, they apparently overlooked another very ‘valuable’ asset: their empty parking lots.

The Russian central bank opened its first overseas office in Beijing on March 14, marking a step forward in forging a Beijing-Moscow alliance to bypass the US dollar in the global monetary system, and to phase-in a gold-backed standard of trade.

The good news is that reducing double taxation is a goal of most major tax plans in Washington. But that doesn’t mean there’s an easy path for reform.

As the federal debt has gone from astounding to unbelievable to incomprehensible, a new problem has emerged: The US government is actually running out of places to borrow.

State legislatures are working to lower barriers to use of precious metals as money.

Newly published data from the U.S. Treasury shows that the federal government has amassed $84.3 trillion in debts, liabilities, and unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations. This amounts to $670,000 for every household in the U.S., a fiscal burden that equals 93% of the nation’s private wealth, including the combined value of every American’s assets in real estate, corporate stocks, small businesses, bonds, savings accounts, cash, and personal goods like automobiles and furniture.

A new problem that has suddenly emerged is the record levels of gasoline sitting in storage. The market has already had to digest the fact that U.S. crude oil stocks were rising, and investors have done their best to explain away the trend. But now gasoline inventories are climbing to unexpected heights.

Economics begins with the proposition that people, individually and collectively, are not able to command sufficient productive resources to satisfy unlimited consumption desires. In economics, this is called the “scarcity proposition.” The flip-side of the scarcity proposition, one that economists and others usually ignore, is that limitless consumption desires, relative to productive resources, means the number of tasks for people to do is also limitless. This means, jobs aren’t scarce! And, the introduction of robots simply increases the size of the community’s economic pie.

Record auto sales have been propped up by low interest rates, a perpetual loosening of auto lending standards with terms being stretched to the max and a wave of leases, all of which have allowed the American consumer to trade up to more expensive vehicles while maintaining low monthly payments. With rates recently on the rise and a flood of lease returns driving down used cars prices the tailwinds that have been propelling auto sales to record highs over the past several months look set to change course.

Spearheaded by legislative efforts in Utah, Texas, and Oklahoma, a substantial number of states have undertaken efforts to reinstitute gold and silver as money. Numerous states are increasingly concerned about the nation’s Fed-based fiat monetary system, which debases the dollar, enables protracted, yawning deficit spending and trade deficits, and runs up huge, unpayable debts. With Utah, Texas, and Oklahoma blazing a trail back to constitutional money, states such as Louisiana, Arizona, South Carolina, and Kansas have been inspired to once again make gold and silver legal tender with which to conduct commerce in their jurisdictions.