<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />It&rsquo;s Not Just Oil That&rsquo;s Messed Up
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;What comes out of the Persian Gulf is more than oil,&rdquo; Jim Rickards wrote this week to his Strategic Intelligence readers.
We hit on this fact on Day 10 of the war. Now at Day 26 it merits our attention once more.
&ldquo;About 20% of the world&rsquo;s liquid natural gas (LNG) comes from the region,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;It is also a major source of synthetic nitrates used as fertilizer &mdash; an input that is indispensable to farmers in developing economies like India and Brazil. Without nitrogen fertilizers for the coming planting season, hundreds of millions of people may face severe food shortages.&rdquo;
And while famine might not hit the United States, Americans will still feel the impact.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4pQwin4lbuvT9PaeGT8rlA/aff576b14e22c8eaa443feb659ac511e/FMF-Issue-032526-1.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Oil itself is about more than gasoline,&rdquo; Jim adds.
&ldquo;In refined form, it produces jet fuel (kerosene), diesel fuel (for trucks, trains and heavy equipment) and a wide range of distillates used in plastics, lubricants and industrial processes. Natural gas is used in some vehicles, but primarily for home heating and electricity generation.
&ldquo;When you look at gas prices &mdash; up roughly 33% in the past month for regular grade &mdash; the inflationary impact of higher oil prices is obvious. But the effect extends far beyond the pump. Everything you buy is transported by truck, train, plane or ship, all of which depend on oil distillates or electricity generated largely from natural gas.
&ldquo;In short, higher energy prices mean higher prices for nearly everything.&rdquo;
Diesel prices are now over $5 a gallon &mdash; up 44% since January.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Markets still expect the war to be resolved quickly, with a return to normal traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Neither expectation is realistic,&rdquo; Jim goes on.
The &ldquo;productive conversations&rdquo; the president mentioned on Monday that moved markets?
According to Iran&rsquo;s semi-official news agency Fars, Tehran formally rejected a 15-point ceasefire proposal from Washington this morning&hellip; and said any talks at this time would be &ldquo;illogical.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6GWyZSSaGEiB69AmuSuVxu/30cfac252ad348bcf1f26ff49ffdf095/FMF-Issue-032526-2.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The longer the Strait of Hormuz remains shuttered, the worse the trouble becomes.
&ldquo;Shortages would emerge not only in crude oil but also in refined products,&rdquo; Jim says. &ldquo;And restarting production is not as simple as flipping a switch. It can take weeks to restore output, and prolonged shutdowns risk permanent damage to well pressure and flow rates.
&ldquo;The situation in LNG may be worse. Damage to Qatar&rsquo;s Ras Laffan export facilities from Iranian strikes could leave a significant portion of capacity offline for years. Ras Laffan alone accounts for about 20% of global LNG supply.
&ldquo;Investors may be bracing for higher prices. What they are not fully accounting for are outright shortages, industrial shutdowns, long-term infrastructure damage and breakdowns in the systems that support global energy markets.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Markets Today: Oil Retreats, Bonds Stressed
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Stocks are rallying, oil is falling&hellip; and the mainstream has settled on a narrative that U.S.-Iran negotiations are nigh, despite what you read in Bullet No. 1.
Really, the action isn&rsquo;t that dramatic. The S&amp;P 500 is up a half percent, approaching 6,600. The gains in the Dow and Nasdaq are a bit stronger.
Meanwhile a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is down 2% to $90.48 &mdash; even as certain Middle East grades are trading for $170 and higher. True, there&rsquo;s a &ldquo;war premium&rdquo; on those grades&hellip; but an $80 premium continues to be beyond the pale for many observers on social media.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3jNfgmFiVm853RvdZHGid3/2685fd6c45565f72aa8c19a0d7135028/FMF-Issue-032526-3.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
An additional constraint on global oil supply: According to new calculations by the Reuters newswire, at least 40% of Russia&rsquo;s crude export capacity is offline &ldquo;following Ukrainian drone attacks, a disputed attack on a major pipeline and the seizure of tankers.&rdquo;
Precious metals are back on the rally tracks &mdash; gold up nearly $80 to $4,552 and silver up $1.37 to $72.48. Crypto remains range-bound, Bitcoin still over $71,000 and Ethereum just under $2,200.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Meanwhile, there&rsquo;s trouble brewing in the bond market.
The U.S. Treasury auctioned a batch of 2-year notes yesterday. It went &ldquo;miserably,&rdquo; to use the words of a strategist at Capitol Securities Management.
&ldquo;Reports of Pentagon plans to deploy roughly 3,000 soldiers from the Army&rsquo;s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East were blamed Tuesday for a weak $69 billion sale of 2-year Treasury notes,&rdquo; says MarketWatch.
&ldquo;Typically, 2-year auctions go largely unnoticed beyond the dealers and buyers involved in the roughly $30 trillion Treasury market. It&rsquo;s often a place where safe-haven seekers and corporations can park cash for a while and earn a bit of yield. The auction starts and buyers line up.&rdquo;
Not yesterday. Weak demand translates to rising rates&hellip; and the 2-year yield soared 0.096 percentage points to 3.926% &mdash; the highest in nearly eight months.
The stress spilled over into the benchmark 10-year note, where yields jumped back over 4.4%.
For the moment, that stress is receding, the 10-year back under 4.32%. All eyes now are on an auction of 5-year notes this afternoon&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />SpaceX Makes Waves, a Competitor Makes Moves
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Just as happened during SpaceCom in Orlando in January&hellip; major SpaceX news is breaking during this week&rsquo;s Satellite 2026 gathering in Washington, D.C.
Back then it was SpaceX&rsquo;s merger with another Elon Musk company, xAI. Now Bloomberg and Reuters report that SpaceX is looking to file its IPO prospectus as early as this week.
&ldquo;I'm watching it break in real-time, surrounded by the people building the industry it's about to put a price tag on,&rdquo; says our Ray Blanco from the convention floor.
&ldquo;The market is about to officially value space-based connectivity at over a trillion dollars. And I've spent the last two days on the ground with the companies riding that same wave.&rdquo;
Ray met up with the guy building the biggest rival to SpaceX&rsquo;s Starlink satellite venture &mdash; Scott Wisniewski, president and chief strategy officer at AST SpaceMobile (ASTS).
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/26plZREVJzslHKjGXfm3qb/6258b8fd5efe533f403015375cec78c3/ALN-ALert-032526_1_.jpg" alt="pub" width="540px" /> And Ray (on the right) has the photo to prove it&hellip;
&ldquo;While every headline was about SpaceX, I was standing on the exhibit floor with the man running commercialization for the company I believe will dominate direct-to-device connectivity from space,&rdquo; Ray writes on the Paradigm mobile app.
As Ray said in yesterday&rsquo;s edition, ASTS has the advantage of existing partnerships with all the major wireless providers. What&rsquo;s more, it has the technology enabling you to make satellite calls using the phone you already have in your pocket.
The company&rsquo;s next big step is the BlueBird 7 satellite launch just five days from now aboard Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket. By year-end, as many as 60 similar satellites will be in orbit.
&ldquo;The SpaceX IPO tells the world space connectivity is a trillion-dollar market. I agree. ASTS is how I'm playing it.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />OpenAI: The Real Story About Sora
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The big story in AI today is not what the media are making it out to be.
OpenAI, the privately held company behind ChatGPT, has shut down its AI video-making platform called Sora.
Sora burst on the scene less than two years ago &mdash; wowing users with its ability to make realistic-looking videos that were once the province of Hollywood studios with sophisticated CGI capabilities.
From the get-go, copyright was an issue: Users were pilfering existing videos and using Sora to edit, remix and otherwise modify them. The furor was such that in December, OpenAI struck a $1 billion content partnership with Disney &mdash; under which ChatGPT users got access to Disney and Marvel characters to create their own AI-generated images and videos.
So much for all that: Less than four months later, Sora is toast and OpenAI will wind down the DIS partnership.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But the real story is where OpenAI says it&rsquo;s directing its resources instead.
The money and brainpower that the company was dumping into Sora? It&rsquo;s being diverted to the two things that Paradigm&rsquo;s experts have said mark the new frontier in AI &mdash; robotics and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/when-ai-does-your-grunt-work">AI agents</a>.
Or as OpenAI said in a statement to the BBC, it&rsquo;s focusing on endeavors &ldquo;that will help people solve real-world, physical tasks.&rdquo;
With this shift, OpenAI is acknowledging there are limits on available capital, on computing power and on energy. Scarce resources have to be devoted to efforts that will enhance productivity &mdash; rather than time-sucks like a video of SpongeBob running away from the cops.
By the way, you can still use ChatGPT to make still images. That doesn&rsquo;t soak up nearly as much computing power or energy.
➢ Meanwhile, Disney probably isn&rsquo;t out any money. The $1 billion DIS was going to &ldquo;invest&rdquo; in OpenAI? As Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta told us at the time of the announcement in December, OpenAI was paying DIS not in cash but with warrants to buy OpenAI stock. &ldquo;Those are likely well in the money and Disney would only put the $1 billion investment in IF they were so &mdash; in fact &mdash; while Disney WOULD be investing $1 billion into OpenAI, they likely would be making much more money than that.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Medicines and the Strait of Hormuz
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Drugs through the Strait of Hormuz?&rdquo; writes a perplexed reader after Saturday&rsquo;s edition about still another supply-chain snag resulting from the war.
&ldquo;Sorry, but no matter how cross-eyed I look at a world map, I can't find a reasonable shipping track from India to the United States through the Strait of Hormuz. Did you maybe mean the Bab al-Mandab Strait between Yemen and Djibouti? At least that makes some sense. Geography can be tricky when you're being shot at.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Ummm&hellip; We thought it was self-evident that the issue isn&rsquo;t with the finished products from India, but rather with some of the ingredients that go into those drugs. (Medical-grade plastics also transit the Strait of Hormuz.)
Among the potential shortages that are looming &mdash; antibiotics, diabetes drugs like metformin, blood pressure meds and even cancer therapies.
As the saying goes, actions have consequences&hellip;

FMF-Issue-032526-Featured)

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Paradigm Pressroom’s 5 Bullets is a daily e-letter covering the economy and the markets, reaching 120,000 paying subscribers of the renowned financial publishing firm Paradigm Press.

Paradigm Pressroom's 5 Bullets

It’s Not Just Oil That’s Messed Up

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t You Guys Make up Your Minds?&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s a common complaint we hear at Paradigm Press &mdash; especially from newer readers.
We&rsquo;re encountering it again this month. Readers hear gloom from Jim Rickards amid the war. They hear optimism from James Altucher amid Nvidia&rsquo;s annual GTC event. Can&rsquo;t you guys make up your minds?
And so we&rsquo;ll take this opportunity to say it again: We don&rsquo;t enforce a &ldquo;company line&rdquo; among our team.
The last thing we want is for our editors to censor or second-guess themselves. You&rsquo;ve paid good money for your subscription(s) and you deserve the editors&rsquo; unvarnished, no-holds-barred opinions.
On those occasions when their opinions diverge, we respect your intelligence enough to weigh those opinions and come to your own conclusions.
At times, we&rsquo;ve even leaned into these divergences &mdash; as with our &ldquo;Gold vs. Bitcoin&rdquo; events in 2018 and 2025 featuring Jim making the case for gold and James making the case for crypto.
And on those occasions where they do agree, we try to spotlight that too &mdash; especially when they line up behind a single stock, and we&rsquo;ll convene an &ldquo;All-In Summit&rdquo; for the Paradigm Mastermind Group.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Trump&rsquo;s Two Words
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Two weeks to the day after Donald Trump moved markets bigly with four words, he&rsquo;s done it again with only two.
As a reminder, on the afternoon of March 9 he told CBS News, &ldquo;I think the war is very complete, pretty much.&rdquo; Oil prices tumbled, U.S. stocks surged.
No one remembers that now because the war continued, indeed escalated.
That&rsquo;s the context for a Trump social media post this morning. It was extremely wordy and in all caps but the two key words were &ldquo;productive conversations&rdquo; between U.S. and Iranian officials.
As such, he called a five-day postponement to his threat to bomb Iranian power plants if Tehran doesn&rsquo;t reopen the Strait of Hormuz. (His original deadline was this evening.)
So, a few things here&hellip;
<ol>
<li>What is there for the two sides to talk about if Trump&rsquo;s sole demand is <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/unconditional-surrender">&ldquo;unconditional surrender&rdquo;</a> as he laid out earlier this month?</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>No one on the Iranian side is confirming that any talks are underway &mdash; and Iranian state media are outright denying it.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>Israel is also a belligerent in this conflict &mdash; and word is that the Israeli Air Force has launched a new series of airstrikes against &ldquo;infrastructure&rdquo; in the Iranian capital Tehran.</li>
</ol>
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> No matter. The effect, however fleeting it turns out to be, is the same as it was two weeks ago: Oil tumbling, U.S. stocks surging.
West Texas Intermediate began the new trading week last night around $98, edging past $100 early this morning. But with the president&rsquo;s talk of &ldquo;productive conversations,&rdquo; it&rsquo;s now under $88.
Futures on the major U.S. stock indexes were looking ugly last night. But this morning, the S&amp;P 500 has roared over 2% higher to 6,638 at last check. The gains in the Dow and the Nasdaq are even stronger.
Bonds are rallying, too &mdash; prices up, yields down. The yield on a 10-year Treasury note sailed past 4.43% overnight &mdash; an eight-month high &mdash; but as we write it&rsquo;s a hair below 4.34%.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Let&rsquo;s take the president&rsquo;s words at face value: Perhaps he or someone in his inner circle realized events over the weekend were quickly hurtling toward the abyss.
First&hellip; there was Trump&rsquo;s Saturday evening threat to bomb Iranian power plants if Tehran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Depending on which experts you want to believe, Iran&rsquo;s biggest power plant generates only 3&ndash;4% of the country&rsquo;s electricity.
Israel&rsquo;s biggest power plant, on the other hand, generates about 20% of the country&rsquo;s electricity &mdash; and would be an attractive target for Tehran. In addition, Tehran would surely amp up its attacks on the oil-and-gas infrastructure of the Gulf monarchies.
Second&hellip; U.S-Israeli airstrikes on Saturday targeted Iran&rsquo;s Natanz uranium-enrichment plant. Tehran responded with airstrikes on Dimona &mdash; the Israeli city that sits about eight miles from the Negev Nuclear Research Center, site of Israel&rsquo;s &ldquo;secret&rdquo; nuclear weapons program.
Israel has never acknowledged the existence of its nuclear weapons, estimated by outside experts to number about 90 warheads. That&rsquo;s because under U.S. law, no country can receive U.S. military aid if it does not comply with regulations and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency &mdash; and Israel does not.
Third&hellip; Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) did the Sunday talk show circuit and talked up a ground attack on Iran&rsquo;s Kharg Island oil terminal by invoking a World War II analogy. &ldquo;We did Iwo Jima, we can do this.&rdquo;
That was too much even for some of his fellow Republicans. &ldquo;This is unacceptable and dark,&rdquo; tweeted Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida). &ldquo;There were over 26,000 American casualties at Iwo Jima.&rdquo;
So that&rsquo;s the state of play. Perhaps the administration is looking for, as the pundits say, an &ldquo;off ramp.&rdquo;
<a id="3"></a>
On the other hand, we&rsquo;ll note that Trump&rsquo;s five-day deadline expires on Friday night &mdash; once more, while U.S. markets are closed for the weekend.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Gold&rsquo;s 2008 Moment?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The movement in precious metals once again deserves its own bullet today.
When electronic trading opened for a new week on Sunday night, the price action was positively ugly &mdash; gold cratering from just under $4,500 to nearly $4,100 and silver sinking from $68 to $62.
But with the &ldquo;productive conversations&rdquo; announcement, gold has trimmed much of those losses &mdash; now down $90 on the day, just below $4,400. And silver is actually in the green by almost a buck at $68.60.
Still, there&rsquo;s been plenty of damage to the metals this month &mdash; i.e., gold tumbling 10% on Friday.
Paradigm natural resources authority Matt Badiali says there might be an X factor at work this time &mdash; the Gulf monarchies selling gold to prop up their currencies and their economies.
&ldquo;Qatar&rsquo;s central bank holds 115 metric tons of gold,&rdquo; he told his Real Wealth Insider readers on Friday. &ldquo;Kuwait&rsquo;s holds about 79 metric tons. (A metric ton of gold is worth around $150 million.)
&ldquo;Based on the downward move in gold price, it looks like some of these countries are selling to offset the economic damage from the war.&rdquo;
In addition, gold is liquid. It&rsquo;s something big-money players can readily sell when they need to raise cash because their other positions are falling apart.
Sean Ring described it like this last week in the Rude Awakening: &ldquo;Hedge funds get margin calls. Banks hit their risk limits. Mutual funds face a wave of redemptions &mdash; people pulling money out all at once. These institutions don&rsquo;t get to sell what they want. They sell what they can. And what they can sell is whatever is large and liquid enough to find a buyer.&rdquo;
It was under those circumstances during the financial crisis in 2008 that gold sank from a peak of $1,020 in March to a trough below $700 in late October. Many of the proverbial &ldquo;weak hands&rdquo; were shaken out by that downdraft.
In case you&rsquo;re wondering: A similar move now would entail a collapse from the late January peak of $5,501 to under $3,800. Again, the bid right now is just over $4,400.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Of course, strong hands in 2008 were rewarded with a rally to over $1,900 by Labor Day 2011.
Which is the setup that Paradigm macro maven Jim Rickards sees. &ldquo;None of the fundamentals has changed,&rdquo; he tells us.
&ldquo;Central banks are still net buyers. Global output is still flat. Investor uncertainty still leaves gold as the only safe haven asset other than U.S. Treasury securities.
&ldquo;BRICS and other nations are still using gold as a reserve asset and trade settlement medium in order to avoid exposure to U.S. Treasuries. This suggests that the gold price rally will soon resume after the technical beatdown.
&ldquo;The hedge fund profit taking will soon be over and the weak hands will have cut and run. The strong hands (central banks and some institutional investors) will then step in.
&ldquo;Look for gold to start rising again in the weeks ahead as the war drags on, other commodity prices spike and safe-haven demand puts gold front and center again.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Fake News That Feels True
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And now a few words about fake news, in light of two things that happened over the weekend. As an old-school journalist who actually cares about the truth, they were painful for me to watch.
In recent years the Norwegian political scientist Glenn Diesen has acquired a following in the United States for his heterodox and frequently astute views about the conflicts in both Ukraine and the Middle East.
But on Saturday, he stepped in it big-time&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7tOJh2Dj62AzsKdq6pVgNg/eedb2a99b80b686b61f30d2b94c58098/FMF-Issue-032326_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Just one problem: The Trump post was phony. (Diesen has since deleted his tweet, but as you see above, most everything on the internet lives forever.)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Then there was this bit of ridiculousness that got tens of thousands of views&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7ePROYZEFAQovOyfTqZWFm/f3365b2e2d0e5c2252f3994741067d19/FMF-Issue-032326_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
This post was further amplified by a Substack page called &ldquo;2nd Smartest Guy in the World&rdquo; &mdash; who does have some perceptive things to say now and then.
As several observers pointed out, a figure of $16.142 billion is right in line with the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s regular purchases of U.S. Treasuries &mdash; purchases that have been underway ever since the Fed announced in December that it would resume expanding its balance sheet.
(The Fed knew better than to call it &ldquo;quantitative easing&rdquo; this time &mdash; even though that&rsquo;s exactly what it is.)
The Fed blowing up its balance sheet is not a good thing in the long run &mdash; but in no way is it an EMERGENCY now.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> What happened to Prof. Diesen and the &ldquo;2nd Smartest Guy in the World&rdquo; is an object lesson for all of us&hellip;
<ol>
<li>Sometimes it&rsquo;s hard to tell Trump parody apart from Trump reality.</li>
</ol>
<ol start="2">
<li>The amount of bogus information out there is proliferating like Topsy (and neither of these examples involves AI!).</li>
</ol>
<ol start="3">
<li>To be an informed citizen, you must be hyper-vigilant &mdash; especially when encountering information that soothes your own confirmation bias.</li>
</ol>
In other words&hellip; even if it rings true, look a little deeper. Take nothing at face value.
Or as they said to cub reporters back in the day at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, &ldquo;If your mother says she loves you, check it out.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Presented without comment&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6XKgpBHUCeCG8OCeq7xWki/00f4eaff0a58a31ff60eb5231f588c89/FMF-Issue-032326_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />

FMF-Issue-032326(Featured)

“Can’t You Guys Make up Your Minds?”

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Oil Shock 2026 (And a &rsquo;70s Flashback)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Your editor&rsquo;s day began with an eye-popping chart sent from six time zones away by Rude Awakening editor Sean Ring. Look closely.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6xSdmai7qMayg7ThUCHnBI/520c5a0dde88c3987ea2705a4f33ec8c/FMF-Issue-031926_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The green line depicts the volatility or lack thereof in oil prices over time. Big swings higher have heralded the onset of nearly every recession &mdash; the vertical gray bars &mdash; for close to 60 years.
The only exception is the brief COVID recession of 2020 &mdash; and even there, you can see it came close. No one remembers now, but oil prices nearly tripled between early 2016 and the autumn of 2018. And a 2020 recession <a href="https://5minforecast.com/2022/03/11/countdown-to-cover-up/">was likely in the cards</a> even without the virus.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> We caution: This chart is not a lead-pipe cinch guarantee that a recession is nigh. 
In recent years, the economic disruptions wrought by COVID lockdowns have scrambled any number of economic indicators that for decades looked like sure things.
For instance, we had an &ldquo;inverted yield curve&rdquo; &mdash; in which longer-term interest rates were lower than short-term rates &mdash; for a two-year stretch between 2022&ndash;2024.
Recessions typically set in less than a year after the curve &ldquo;uninverts&rdquo; and once again longer-term rates are higher than short-term rates.
Not this time: While the economy feels punk for anyone other than the top 10% of income-earners, there&rsquo;s no evidence of a recession as most economists would describe it.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Still&hellip; it&rsquo;s not too soon to start thinking about analogs to the &ldquo;oil shock&rdquo; of 1973&ndash;74&hellip; and the &ldquo;stagflation&rdquo; that marked the rest of the 1970s.
At least one economist thinks it&rsquo;s inevitable&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1LEiKpESf1A8hcYrD8IVyo/969b4d35b20193da55b4f8f20f864823/FMF-Issue-031926_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
To refresh your memory: The U.S. government intervened on the side of Israel during the Yom Kippur War of October 1973 &mdash; a 19-day conflict between Israel and a coalition of Arab states.
Arab oil producers responded with an embargo on oil sales to the United States. Oil prices quadrupled from roughly $3 a barrel to $12.
The impact was instant and severe: The U.S. economy tumbled into a recession the following month and it dragged on through all of 1974 and into early 1975. Unemployment peaked at 9% (at a time when unemployment was still measured honestly).
It was the worst hit to the economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
And even when the recession was over, the recovery was weak. At the same time, reckless money printing by the Federal Reserve aimed at ensuring Richard Nixon&rsquo;s reelection in 1972 set the country on an inflationary course for the rest of the &rsquo;70s, with consumer prices leaping 14% year-over-year by early 1980.
Stagnation + inflation = stagflation.
The stock market was already in trouble during 1973 and wound up falling 45% peak-to-trough over a two-year stretch. It languished into the early 1980s and inflation ate into whatever meager returns the market generated.
Gold, meanwhile&hellip;
Well, we might as well give that its own bullet &mdash; given the carnage today.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Gold&hellip; and 1974&hellip; and 2008
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The good news for precious metals bulls is that the gold price is still in the green year-to-date.
The bad news is that it&rsquo;s down $216 or 4.5% as we write, barely holding onto the $4,600 level.
Silver is now in the red for 2026, the bid down nearly five bucks on the day to $70.39. The HUI index of mining stocks is down 7.2%, slipping below 700 and basically back to where it was at the start of the year.
We&rsquo;ll note here that amid the 1973&ndash;74 oil shock, gold fulfilled its role as a hedge against geopolitical risk &mdash; tripling from $64 to nearly $200 in very short order.
And then it collapsed 50% during 1974&hellip; finally, roaring 8X higher by early 1980. Volatility.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Maybe the stronger analogy right now is 2008.
&ldquo;Back then, fear drove gold and silver down 25% and 55% respectively,&rdquo; recalls Paradigm natural resources authority Matt Badiali.
&ldquo;And when metal prices fall modestly, mining stocks collapse. In 2008, the VanEck Gold Miners ETF (GDX), the benchmark for gold mining stocks, fell 70%.&rdquo;
A falling gold price now? That reflects fear that the Iran war will metastasize into a global economic crisis. Economic fears trump geopolitical fears, at least right now.
Now the rest of the 2008 story: &rdquo;Gold and silver bottomed in November 2008,&rdquo; Matt recalls.
&ldquo;Gold rose over 150% from its 2008 low to its 2011 high. Silver soared 400% from its 2008 low to its 2011 high. Gold stocks, as tracked by the GDX, rose 250% over that same period.
&ldquo;We&rsquo;ve seen this play out before. We&rsquo;re watching this decline in metal prices as a prelude to another big run. As the miners&rsquo; prices fall, we&rsquo;ll be looking for an entry point. Other less experienced investors will be running for the hills and we&rsquo;ll be backing up the truck.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Stocks and Oil: The Market Meltdown That Wasn&rsquo;t
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> What first looked like a rocky day for the U.S. stock market (down) and oil (up) has turned into&hellip; well, something rather different.
When we left you yesterday, Israeli airstrikes lit up Iran&rsquo;s massive South Pars natural gas field &mdash; and Tehran was threatening revenge on energy infrastructure in the gulf sheikdoms.
Tehran has since made good on those threats &mdash; striking the Ras Laffan liquefied natural gas plant in Qatar, the largest plant for LNG exports in the world. Just like that, an estimated 3.5% of global LNG capacity is gone &mdash; and by one ballpark guess, so is a third of global <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/one-noble-gas-no-substitute">helium supply</a>.
The plant took 14 years to build and Reuters reports that getting it back online will take three&ndash;five years.
Iranian forces also targeted the Yanbu oil export terminals in Saudi Arabia. Yanbu is located on the Red Sea and as such is the only way the kingdom&rsquo;s oil exports can bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
The initial market reaction was stocks down big and oil up big. But as midday approaches on the U.S. East Coast, those moves are looking much more muted.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 is down a little over a half percent to 6,586 &mdash; basically a four-month low. Both the Dow and the Nasdaq have shed about three-quarters of a percent. Not great, but not a big whoosh.
➢ Lest we forget: To no one&rsquo;s surprise, the Federal Reserve left short-term interest rates alone yesterday at the conclusion of its March policy-setting meeting. Looking at the activity in the futures markets, traders now expect no rate cuts this year.
The action in oil, meanwhile, has been simply ridiculous. The &ldquo;spread&rdquo; between West Texas Intermediate crude (the U.S. benchmark) and Brent crude (the global benchmark) has blown out to crazy-wide levels. Brent is usually priced higher but at last check it&rsquo;s $109.74 while WTI is still $98.66.
You don&rsquo;t have to search far on social media to find still more complaints of market manipulation. Manipulation or no, the spread hasn&rsquo;t been this wide since mid-2022.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Back to the Strait of Hormuz for a moment: We ran across an observer on X asking why doesn&rsquo;t Israel&rsquo;s military act to force the waterway back open.
Answer: The U.S. government guarantees an energy supply to Israel no matter what. That&rsquo;s according to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/20/israelandthepalestinians.oil">a 2003 </a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/20/israelandthepalestinians.oil">Guardian</a><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/apr/20/israelandthepalestinians.oil"> article</a> that&rsquo;s resurfaced on social media in recent days&hellip;
<blockquote>In 1975, [Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger signed&hellip; a memorandum of understanding whereby the U.S. would guarantee Israel&rsquo;s oil reserves and energy supply in times of crisis&hellip; The memorandum has been quietly renewed every five years, with special legislation attached whereby the U.S. stocks a strategic oil reserve for Israel even if it entailed domestic shortages &mdash; at a cost of $3 billion in 2002 to U.S. taxpayers.</blockquote>
There&rsquo;s no evidence to suggest this agreement has since lapsed or been canceled.
We give the last word for now to Cato Institute foreign policy scholar Brandan Buck&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4hZTrWVCZP4BeDzFynYJdM/a45dd2fc12d6067a4376ca5259321b74/FMF-Issue-031926_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Sign of the times, even before the war&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2M4EZy8J1mWjUKA4Ah4ddy/827dd129820195ca823777b1f9344d08/FMF-Issue-031926_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: AI Agents, Emily&rsquo;s Departure
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On the subject of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/when-ai-does-your-grunt-work">AI agents and the computational power they require</a> relative to chatbots, we heard from a member of our Omega Wealth Circle&hellip;
&ldquo;So how many people can use AI agents before the systems are overwhelmed, either by processing power or electricity?
&ldquo;I think we are about to face a modern example of the &lsquo;tragedy of the commons,&rsquo; where if one person grazed his cattle on land open to all, he did well, but when everyone tries to graze their cattle there, the commons is destroyed.
&ldquo;I suspect that as more people try to use AI agents, the price is going to go up A LOT. The true cost may be in the thousands of dollars per month, and if they charge that much, then the number of users will not overload the systems. If it does, then the price goes up even more.
&ldquo;In the case you gave of having your flight cancelled and using agentic AI to take care of all the details of flights, hotels, etc., if it cost $10, just for that event, then millions of people would use it, but if it cost $1,000, then the usage would be much less.
&ldquo;I am watching this space closely.&rdquo;
Dave responds: As are we, rest assured.
Maybe agentic AI will be the catalyst for the tech industry to move beyond the business model that&rsquo;s defined it throughout the 21st century: &ldquo;If you&rsquo;re not paying for the product, then you&rsquo;re the product.&rdquo;
Of course we&rsquo;ve been pounding the table about AI and its impact on the power grid for over two years &mdash; long before the mainstream caught on.
And there&rsquo;s another constraint facing AI. We touched on it in early 2025. It&rsquo;s something the technology sector hasn&rsquo;t grappled with before &mdash; the rising cost of borrowed money.
Interest rates move in decades-long cycles &mdash; 40 years up, 40 years down, give or take. IBM&rsquo;s introduction of the first mass-market personal computer in 1981 coincided almost perfectly with a secular peak in interest rates &mdash; 15.8% on a 10-year U.S. Treasury note.
From that peak, it was generally down for the next four decades &mdash; not a straight line, of course, but a steady trajectory. The tech industry was able to ride that wave all the way down; any debt they took on for startup or expansion could be refinanced later at a lower interest rate.
But those days are over. The bottom of that falling-rate cycle came in August 2020, when the 10-year T-note yielded a paltry 0.5% (and the work-from-home crowd had just loaded up on all the electronics they&rsquo;d need for a few years).
Today the 10-year yield rests at 4.26%. It&rsquo;s higher now than when the Fed started cutting short-term rates 18 months ago. Usually long-term rates fall in sympathy with cuts to short-term rates &mdash; but no longer.
Rising rates might be one reason the much-ballyhooed Stargate AI project <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/jim-rickards-software-stock-scare#2">can&rsquo;t get off the ground</a> &mdash; in addition to infighting among the principal investors.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Thank you for all you've done, Emily. You, Dave and the team are the best,&rdquo; a reader writes as Emily Clancy <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/one-noble-gas-no-substitute?vid2=f7584bb8d0f8b4ef03ea4a2a79cb9ffebd5601637dfb4b221b21055bfe10aa56fb9565c7166c12ea93687031263ed97489aead8f437e4ddd1cfcbcd5e6a6bb06&amp;utm_campaign=FMF_Issue_03.18.26_&amp;utm_source=Iterable&amp;itbl_templateId=22562110&amp;itbl_campaignId=17330027&amp;utm_medium=Email#5">prepares to move on</a>.
&ldquo;5 Bullets has been my No. 1 must-read for more years than I can count. Good luck with your new venture!&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Congratulations on your move to join Jim Rickards&rsquo; team,&rdquo; says another note to Emily. &ldquo;I know you will learn all kinds of new skills and build your knowledge base even deeper than it is today.
&ldquo;I will miss your contributions to the 5 Bullets. You marry information, perspective and a clever sense of humor. Your unique style is a bonus to the information the emails always contain.
&ldquo;Best wishes for a wonderful career move.&rdquo;
Dave clarifies: I gave a longtime reader the wrong impression yesterday. To be clear: When I said I was preparing &ldquo;my own sendoff&rdquo; to run in tomorrow&rsquo;s edition, I meant my sendoff for Emily. 
Sorry if I gave anyone a scare! Or in the case of this one reader, inspired him to raise a glass after &ldquo;being a teetotaler for some time.&rdquo; (It&rsquo;s kinda weighing on my conscience now&hellip;)

FMF-Issue-031926(Featured)

Oil Shock 2026 

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Elon Musk&rsquo;s Very Busy Week
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It&rsquo;s been a busy few days for Elon Musk. In no particular order, the following things have taken place&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Musk offered to pay TSA workers for the duration of the current dispute between the White House and Congress over Homeland Security funding. The White House said no &mdash; in part because SpaceX&rsquo;s status as a federal contractor might lead to someone challenging the arrangement in court</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Musk is demanding a judge in Delaware step aside from a shareholder lawsuit against Tesla &mdash; claiming the judge &ldquo;supported&rdquo; a post on LinkedIn that poked fun at him</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>After OpenAI announced it&rsquo;s junking its Sora video-creation platform, Musk said he&rsquo;s &ldquo;doubling down&rdquo; on video at xAI. &rdquo;The next Grok Imagine release will be epic.&rdquo;</li>
</ul>
Oh, and yesterday Musk very publicly shot down a plan announced by one of his top lieutenants at X &mdash; aimed at cutting cut off the revenue flow for overseas users who are constantly s***posting about U.S. politics for clicks.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4pRwXMrA0C0Fp0N0FLKVlG/1f029d52e0fe03f94392ae75024df5af/FMF-Issue-032626-1.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Also yesterday, Tesla dropped a new video about its Optimus robot &mdash; aimed mostly at attracting more tech talent to work on the project ahead of mass production this summer.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/577aT2HnKrjTzwOawYQTdp/0678e845ad405ff7e9aad56072edf017/FMF-Issue-032626-2.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
"We are getting very close to the human functionality and form factor," says a current employee in the video. Tesla released postings for over 100 Optimus-adjacent jobs.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And none of this even accounts for SpaceX&rsquo;s pending IPO.
As mentioned here yesterday, the firm might file its IPO prospectus as early as this week &mdash; what&rsquo;s shaping up to be the biggest IPO in history. Smaller space-oriented firms that are already publicly traded basked in the glow &mdash; Firefly Aerospace and Rocket Lab both rising over 10%.
&ldquo;The SpaceX IPO will tell the world this is a trillion-dollar market,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s tech investing specialist Ray Blanco &mdash; in attendance this week at the Satellite 2026 conference in Washington, D.C. And not just the obvious applications. &ldquo;Everyone is planning on space compute and space data centers.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />&ldquo;Irrational Optimism&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Irrational optimism&rdquo; is the word of the day at CERAWeek &mdash; an annual gathering of the oil industry&rsquo;s movers and shakers in Houston. So says Karim Fawaz, an analyst with S&amp;P Global.
As Fawaz sees it, Donald Trump&rsquo;s jawboning about the progress of the war is doing an effective job of keeping a lid on the oil price.
Yesterday was a case in point, with Trump&rsquo;s remarks about Iranian leaders being ready to talk. A barrel of West Texas Intermediate tumbled 2% to $90.48 &mdash; even though word was already arriving from Tehran that the mullahs rejected a 15-point ceasefire proposal from Washington.
Writing on X, Fawaz chalks it up to normalcy bias &mdash; and dread. &ldquo;The alternative is so daunting to think about, with consequences so grave, that many are choosing optimism even without a solid foundation.&rdquo;
But now, with the president telling Tehran to &ldquo;get serious soon, before it is too late,&rdquo; crude is up nearly four bucks today to $94.28.
The action in crude both yesterday and today is mirrored in the major U.S. stock indexes: At last check the S&amp;P 500 has given up all of yesterday&rsquo;s gains and then some, down more than three-quarters of a percent to 6,539. The Dow&rsquo;s losses are more modest, the Nasdaq&rsquo;s steeper.
Too, with the war now about to enter its fifth week, Mr. Market might be tumbling to the phenomenon we&rsquo;ve cited regularly, captured by the remark of a cynic on X we cited Tuesday: &ldquo;The pattern is consistent: escalate on Fridays [in the evening] when energy markets are shut, pivot to dovish talk on Mondays to carry the market through the week.&rdquo;
Precious metals, you ask? Not pretty &mdash; gold down 1.5% to $4,437 and silver getting clobbered 4%, now $68.26. The floor on gold is $4,100 &mdash; a level last seen in November and tested briefly on Monday.
Crypto is stuck in the mud, Bitcoin just under $69,000 and Ethereum at $2,067.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Lest we forget, jitters remain in the bond market.
On the heels of a lousy auction of 2-year Treasury notes Tuesday, the government auctioned 5-year notes yesterday. Once again, demand was tepid at best &mdash; pushing the yield up to 3.98%.
Checking the benchmark 10-year Treasury, it&rsquo;s approaching 4.39% &mdash; once again testing highs that go back to last summer. Uncle Sam&rsquo;s borrowing costs are going nowhere but up.
That said, there&rsquo;s no panic in the bond market. The MOVE Index &mdash; a measure of volatility for bonds similar to the VIX for stocks &mdash; sits at 97.6. Real panic doesn&rsquo;t set in until the MOVE approaches 140.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Gas Pains
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> While oil gets all the headlines, we can&rsquo;t overlook the disruption to the market for liquefied natural gas.
&ldquo;The closure of the Persian Gulf cuts off about 20% of global LNG exports,&rdquo; says Paradigm macroeconomics authority Jim Rickards. &ldquo;Producers in the Gulf including Iraq, Abu Dhabi and Kuwait have run out of storage capacity and are now slashing production. Saudi Arabia has closed the Safaniya, Zuluf and Abu Safa oil fields because of Iranian drone attacks.
&ldquo;Kuwait&rsquo;s Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, which processes 730,000 barrels of oil per day, has been struck by Iranian missiles several days in a row. Saudi Arabia&rsquo;s giant Ras Tanura refinery complex, which handles 550,000 barrels per day, has also come under attack.
&ldquo;The damage to Qatar&rsquo;s Ras Laffan LNG export facilities from Iranian missiles and drones is so extensive that 20% of its capacity may be offline for years. Ras Laffan produces 20% of the world&rsquo;s LNG. The war is not over and the damage may get worse before the war ends.
&ldquo;This is not a marginal impact. The global price of LNG has already risen over 60% since the war began and may double from that base level in the days ahead. The world may soon reach a point where no LNG is available at any price because it has all been purchased by desperate users.&rdquo;
Yes, as we said earlier this month, American producers of LNG stand to benefit big-time.
Jim recommended call options on one of them yesterday for readers of his premium advisory Insider Intel.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Free Speech Victory (Such As It Is)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Chalk up a modest victory in the battle against internet censorship and the feds&rsquo; attempts to strong-arm the tech giants.
&ldquo;The Justice Department has settled a lawsuit over allegations that the Biden administration pressured social media companies to remove or suppress speech,&rdquo; reports The Hill.
We should back up a bit: In the summer of 2024 the Supreme Court decided a case called Murthy v. Missouri. Several of the plaintiffs were physicians who dissented from the conventional wisdom about COVID &mdash; and who got hushed up by the likes of Facebook and Twitter.
They sued the feds &mdash; presenting a compelling case that those companies acted under government pressure. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/supreme-cowards">But in a depressing 6-3 ruling we chronicled at the time</a>, the high court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked &ldquo;standing.&rdquo; That is, there was no smoking-gun email that said, Take down this exact individual&rsquo;s post or else.
However, the ruling didn&rsquo;t dismiss the case altogether; it only denied the plaintiffs from getting a preliminary injunction against the feds while the lawsuit itself was being decided. The case was then sent back to lower courts.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> This week, the Justice Department reached a settlement with the plaintiffs&rsquo; lawyers that brings the case to a close.
&ldquo;It was a victory, even if we did not get everything we wanted in the settlement,&rdquo; says one of the plaintiffs &mdash; Aaron Kheriaty, a former psychiatry professor at the University of California Irvine.
As he writes on his Substack page&hellip;
<blockquote>&hellip; the settlement prohibits the U.S. Surgeon General, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) from threatening social media companies into removing or suppressing constitutionally protected speech on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn and YouTube. It also bars these government authorities from directing or vetoing the companies&rsquo; social media content moderation choices.</blockquote>
The disturbing documents uncovered during Murthy v. Missouri revealed the existence of a pervasive &ldquo;censorship industrial complex&rdquo; &mdash; a central theme in our annual censorship issues of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/the-censorship-industrial-complex">2023</a> and <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/todays-5-bullets-is-packed-with-misinformation">2024</a>.
Of course, there&rsquo;s a new administration in charge now. But as we chronicled in our 2025 censorship issue, the threat to free expression remains. <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/deport-tucker-carlson">It&rsquo;s just taking a different form</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Japan&rsquo;s TP Scare (and a &rsquo;70s Flashback)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is causing all manner of supply-chain disruptions in Japan &mdash; but a toilet paper shortage is not one of them.
About three-quarters of the country&rsquo;s oil supply transits the strait. The cutoff of supply is definitely going to bite &mdash; but by and large the trouble does not extend beyond petroleum-dependent products.
No matter: There are scattered reports about runs on toilet paper, prompting the country&rsquo;s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry to post the following on social media&hellip;
<blockquote>Regarding the distribution of toilet paper in light of the situation in Iran and other matters, toilet paper is almost entirely produced domestically. The raw materials are domestically collected recycled paper and pulp, with almost no dependence on the Middle East, so there will be no direct impact. There is also sufficient capacity to increase production, so we ask that you use sound judgment based on accurate information before buying any.</blockquote>
Then again, the SoraNews24 site informs us that fear of TP shortages is more or less ingrained into the collective Japanese psyche &mdash; thanks in part to what happened during the oil shock of 1973, when Japan was among the countries embargoed by Arab oil producers.
As a goodwill gesture to customers strapped by rising prices, a supermarket in Osaka put toilet paper on sale &mdash; marked down 31% from the regular price. TP flew off the shelves as a result. The article goes on&hellip;
<blockquote>The spectacle of so many people buying toilet paper at once caught the attention of the media. However, by the time a Mainichi Shimbun reporter came down to check it out, they only saw the regularly priced paper on the shelves. As such, they reported it as if people were hoarding toilet paper merely as a result of the oil crisis rather than just pouncing on a really good price. </blockquote>
And thus began a wave of panic buying &mdash; not just of toilet paper but also salt, detergent, feminine hygiene products...
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &hellip; and the story doesn&rsquo;t end there. The panic spread to the United States &mdash; decades before the COVID TP fright of 2020.
It originated with a congressmember from a timber-intensive part of Wisconsin, Harold Froehlich. Based on some government contracting documents he encountered, he warned that &ldquo;the U.S. may face a serious shortage of toilet paper within a few months.&rdquo;
That by itself wasn&rsquo;t enough to inspire panic buying. The problem was when Froehlich&rsquo;s remark became fodder for Johnny Carson&rsquo;s monologue one night on The Tonight Show. (You have to be of a certain age to get a couple of the references&hellip;)
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K9-Lz0SbrA"><img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1dgTIJJx4SIHXNkGeoFjoo/1b40606f1827af08d806491b8fe32ab5/FMF-Issue-032626-3.jpg" alt="Click here to learn more" width="540px" /></a>
The hoarding was severe enough that at least one manufacturer &mdash; Scott &mdash; had to ration its wholesale shipments to retailers. Supply was no problem &mdash; only demand.
In time, Carson felt compelled to apologize on-air. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to be remembered as the man who created a false toilet paper scare.&rdquo;
At least nothing of the sort is happening here again. Well, not yet&hellip;

FMF-Issue-032626-Featured

Elon Musk’s Very Busy Week

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />When AI Does Your Grunt Work
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> We spilled some digital ink both yesterday and the day before about &ldquo;agentic AI.&rdquo; But it might still be too abstract, too airy-fairy, to wrap your mind around.
Let&rsquo;s remedy that today &mdash; with the help of pre-2026 AI.
I plugged the following inquiry into the Perplexity AI engine: &ldquo;Please furnish a vivid and recent example of agentic AI that would resonate for a &lsquo;normie&rsquo; whose only familiarity with AI is LLM chatbots.&rdquo;
Perplexity spat out a scenario in which you&rsquo;re flying home from a work trip &mdash; only to see your flight cancelled. Before you even open the airline app or start schlepping toward a help desk, an AI agent does the following&hellip;
<ul>
<li>Notices the cancellation in your email/airline app</li>
<li>Checks your calendar to see you have an important meeting tomorrow morning</li>
<li>Searches all possible rebooking options: earlier flights, nearby airports, even train options plus Uber to get home on time</li>
<li>Looks up your preferences it already learned (&ldquo;won&rsquo;t do red-eyes,&rdquo; &ldquo;OK with a layover if it gets home earlier&rdquo;)</li>
<li>Decides the best plan: Rebook you on a different airline tonight from a nearby airport, books a rideshare to that airport and finds a hotel near your destination in case of further delay.</li>
</ul>
Then it actually books the flight for you &mdash; using your credit card on file and applying your frequent-flyer miles. Oh, and it cancels your previous hotel booking and notifies your colleagues on Slack or Teams that while your original flight was cancelled, you&rsquo;ll still make that important meeting.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Plugging the same query into Elon Musk&rsquo;s Grok engine, I got the following: 
<blockquote>You open your laptop, fire up the Claude desktop app (Anthropic&rsquo;s tool) and type one casual sentence:</blockquote>
<blockquote>&ldquo;Hey Cowork, my Downloads folder is a total disaster&mdash;sort everything into folders by file type and date, pull out any receipts or invoices and make a clean spreadsheet summary of what&rsquo;s there with totals if it&rsquo;s money stuff. Oh, and flag anything that looks like a bill I haven&rsquo;t paid.&rdquo;</blockquote>
<blockquote>Then you walk away to grab coffee.</blockquote>
Cowork then scans every file, drags and drops them, identifies PDFs that look like invoices and builds an Excel spreadsheet detailing them. Once you&rsquo;re done swilling your coffee after 15 minutes or so, it&rsquo;s all done for you &mdash; even flagging three unpaid bills.
Sorta funny that Grok is doing free advertising for a competitor, but whatevs&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> OK now does the potential of agentic AI seem more real?
And it&rsquo;s come to the fore only in the last several weeks with the advent of an AI agent called OpenClaw.
Little wonder that AI agents were all the talk this week at Nvidia&rsquo;s annual GTC gathering in San Jose.
It was a must-see event for Paradigm AI authority James Altucher and his team &mdash; on site in California. Yesterday, fresh from the event, they took part in our Tech Turning Point 2026 online forum.
There, James explained how pre-2026 AI was simply an &ldquo;ask-answer&rdquo; proposition. AI agents differ in two huge ways: &ldquo;An AI agent is working around the clock &mdash; and it&rsquo;s taking action.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Ask-answer uses only a certain amuont of AI &mdash; a certain amount of bandwidth and computational power. But when you&rsquo;re continuously doing something and taking action you need 10,000 times more computational power.
&ldquo;The computational power required, and the companies that are delivering that power, are really important.&rdquo; Nvidia, yes, but at the same time, &ldquo;people don&rsquo;t realize there are 80 suppliers of the components in every GPU [chip],&rdquo; James says. And that&rsquo;s what I&rsquo;m really interested in.&rdquo;
AI agents were only one topic on the agenda for our Tech Turning Point 2026 event yesterday. Our experts covered the gamut from robots to outer space.
And no, there was no attached sales pitch. Just two hours and 35 minutes of insights and actionable guidance &mdash; our way of saying thanks to you for being a Paradigm Press customer. <a href="https://paradigmpresslive.com/TechTurningPoint2026">Click here to start watching</a>.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Is Oil $95&hellip; Or $150?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Has anyone suggested the price of oil is being manipulated in the futures markets?&rdquo; a reader writes.
&ldquo;The price as I write is just above $95. To me, this seems so faraway from pricing in the current and future uncertainty in the gulf.&rdquo;
Short answer: Yes. The Financial Times says only yesterday, the price of crude coming out of Oman soared to a record $150 a barrel. Never mind that those barrels depart from ports that lie outside the Strait of Hormuz!
Chalk it up to &ldquo;intense competition for the small volumes still leaving the Middle East,&rdquo; says the paper.
Among those who agree with the reader&rsquo;s thesis is the Portuguese author and one-time diplomat Bruno Macaes&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6Yu85gYXqxEoLCtJON0w2Q/4d9474a6f9dd3cf84b7c582867b19097/FMF-Issue-031826_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Checking our screens &mdash; for whatever it&rsquo;s worth &mdash; a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up 2.4% to $98.93.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />But for nearly every other asset class, it&rsquo;s a sea of red today.
The S&amp;P 500 is down nearly two-thirds of a percent to 6,674 &mdash; giving up about half of its gains the last two days. The Nasdaq is down just over a half percent, the Dow down about 1%.
But for a real drubbing, look to the precious metals &mdash; gold down 2.8% to $4,863 and silver down 3.4% to $76.45, a one-month low.
Crypto&rsquo;s been caught up in the selling too. Bitcoin sits at $71,386 &mdash; the move over $73,000 couldn&rsquo;t stick. Ethereum has pulled back under $2,200.
The big economic number of the day is wholesale prices &mdash; up 0.7% between January and February. Literally no one among dozens of economists polled by Econoday expected an increase of over 0.3%.
No doubt that will feed into consumer inflation next month &mdash; on top of whatever&rsquo;s more costly because of the war.
<a id="3"></a>
As such, there&rsquo;s almost zero chance the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates today. The Fed&rsquo;s decision will be rendered by the time you read this; we&rsquo;ll follow up tomorrow.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Supply-Chain Snags, Iran War Edition
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> As for the war&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/2FxG0NSae0dBk2eAUUDHYn/1ccbb73074a236e7965ff1d76771fa20/FMF-Issue-031826_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
No, the Strait of Hormuz is not open. Tehran still has full control over who may pass.
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes are now targeting Iran&rsquo;s vast South Pars natural gas field. As such, Tehran says it&rsquo;s within its rights to carry out airstrikes on energy infrastructure in the Gulf sheikdoms.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The longer Hormuz remains closed, the more likely we face COVID-level disruptions to the supply chain.
Certainly that&rsquo;s already the case in large swaths of Asia. Diesel shortages in Thailand. Steel production interrupted in India, for want of natural gas. Today and every Wednesday declared a public holiday in Sri Lanka, just so people won&rsquo;t burn fuel going to work.
Speaking of India, look at the threat to its fertilizer supply coming from the gulf&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5ucwN7tlxXdF2aKsmKPqJ9/838b29567fd3e98049474dfa48d7705a/FMF-Issue-031826_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
North America is not immune: We&rsquo;re hearing murmurs from the Farm Belt about how fertilizer is now so costly that many corn farmers might opt to plant soybeans this year instead &mdash; because bean plants more or less make their own fertilizer.
Reminder: Among many other uses, corn is what makes the ethanol that goes into your gas tank.
As for the view from the White House&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1H7w4oTEQ6POnrRSccugp1/5bc21d1b4f25b99067c49e8f27cb7583/FMF-Issue-031826_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
To be fair, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said the reason it&rsquo;s &ldquo;the last of our concerns&rdquo; is that &ldquo;we are very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule.&rdquo;
If that makes you feel any better&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Tariff Fallout: Costco Customer Sues
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> This tariff refund thing is getting complicated.
As you probably know, the Supreme Court struck down the legal justification the Trump administration was using for much of its tariff regime &mdash; while dodging the question of whether companies that paid the tariffs were now entitled to refunds.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of companies are now appealing to the U.S. Court of International Trade for refunds &mdash; including Costco Wholesale (COST).
Here&rsquo;s the plot twist: A Costco customer is suing the company, demanding that shoppers get a cut of any refunds the company collects. The suit filed by Matthew Sockov says it would amount to &ldquo;unjust enrichment&rdquo; if Costco recouped its tariff costs twice &mdash; &ldquo;from customers through elevated pricing and from the government.&rdquo;
"The truly injured parties possess no direct avenue for redress," says the suit filed in federal court in Illinois. Sockov is asking the court to declare his case a class action.
The BBC asked Costco for comment &mdash; but none was forthcoming.
Perhaps that&rsquo;s because the company thinks even addressing the issue is putting the proverbial cart before the horse. On an earnings call this month, CEO Ron Vachris said it&rsquo;s still fuzzy &ldquo;what refunds, if any, will be received.&rdquo;
Stay tuned&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Escorts, Swan Song
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The subject line of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trump-seeking-escorts">Monday&rsquo;s edition</a> elicited a couple of reader remarks, including this one&hellip;
&ldquo;Given the president's well-documented personal habits, maybe not the best wording for the 5 Bullets headline...?&nbsp;
[It was done very deliberately and you know that&hellip;]
&ldquo;I found myself thinking, OMG, it's not bad enough that he's started a war in the Middle East, but now he's after a Desert Stormy...&rdquo;
[RIM SHOT &ldquo;I&rsquo;m here all week, make sure to try the veal&hellip;&rdquo;]
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Thank you, Emily, God bless you on your next endeavor,&rdquo; says one of many replies after <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/one-noble-gas-no-substitute/#5">Emily&rsquo;s swan song</a> yesterday on the weekday 5 Bullets.
&ldquo;I can&rsquo;t believe it&rsquo;s been nine years!&rdquo; says another. &ldquo;I am a FAITHFUL reader and appreciate all of your work over the years.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Thank you to Emily Clancy for years of well-written and insightful bullets,&rdquo; adds a third. &ldquo;I've absorbed a lot of ammunition and enjoyed every minute. P.S. This is my first feedback to your newsletter, and it seems fitting.
&ldquo;I don't usually respond to things at Paradigm (I'm a relatively new member),&rdquo; says one more, &ldquo;but I wanted to tell you that I have always enjoyed your 5 Bullets. Best of luck on your future role.&rdquo;
As Emily mentioned here yesterday, she&rsquo;s not going far &mdash; taking on a new role within our Jim Rickards unit. And you&rsquo;ll still hear from her in our Saturday wrap-up edition.
As for my own sendoff, I&rsquo;ll save that for the end of the week on Friday. In the meantime, catch you tomorrow&hellip;

FMF-Issue-031826(Featured)

When AI Does Your Grunt Work

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />No Balloons. No Chips
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> You might have been planning on green balloons for your St. Patrick&rsquo;s Day festivities. 
Here&rsquo;s some bad news: The same geopolitical shock that&rsquo;s reshaping global energy markets may make all balloons an endangered species in 2026. And that&rsquo;s genuinely the least important part of this story.
Here to add context to our reporting last week, Paradigm&rsquo;s Matt Badiali has been tracking natural resources through booms, busts and geopolitical shocks for decades.
This week, he&rsquo;s sounding the alarm on helium.
It all goes back to events in Qatar on March 2. That&rsquo;s when Iranian drones struck the Ras Laffan Industrial City complex &mdash; one of the world&rsquo;s largest LNG and helium production hubs.
QatarEnergy declared force majeure on its existing helium supply contracts on March 4, legally freeing it from delivery obligations to customers worldwide.
At the time of writing, no restart is planned, and the facility has been offline for nearly two weeks, removing roughly 30% of global helium supply from the market in a single stroke.
Most people hear &ldquo;helium shortage&rdquo; and think party supplies. Matt wants you to think semiconductors.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Helium is vital for making computer chips because it lets factories run their machines extremely hot, clean and precisely without messing up the tiny circuits,&rdquo; Matt explains.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a noble gas, so it doesn&rsquo;t react with the materials used to build chips. That helps keep the environment inside the machines very pure.&rdquo;
It also does something less obvious: &ldquo;It carries heat away really well, so it cools wafers evenly during intense processes, preventing them from cracking or warping.
&ldquo;It helps stabilize the plasmas used to carve out the microscopic patterns on chips and is used to check for leaks in the vacuum systems, since its small atoms are easy to detect.&rdquo;
Chipmakers now consume 20% of the world's helium supply &mdash; eclipsing MRI cooling as the primary industrial use.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM), which controls over 50% of the global chipmaking market, is the single largest consumer.
And unlike most industrial inputs, there is no substitute. &ldquo;Like copper in electric motors,&rdquo; Matt says, &ldquo;there isn&rsquo;t any substitute for helium in that role.&rdquo;
The consequences of losing it aren&rsquo;t just expensive; it&rsquo;s a terminal risk. &ldquo;Without enough helium, you can't make the chips at all.
&ldquo;It's like water in bread making. The cost of the water is nothing compared to the price of the bread&hellip; but you can&rsquo;t make bread at all without the water.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The nation with the most to lose right now is South Korea. According to data from the Korea International Trade Association, Qatar supplied 64.7% of South Korea&rsquo;s helium imports in 2025.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3capq4DQOOjZhUI1hXaWL7/e9b1f7ceb0f587d746572ff76ec89441/FMF-Issue-031726_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" /> Hmm&hellip; Rain in the forecast for the <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trump-seeking-escorts#3">&ldquo;Woodstock of AI&rdquo;?</a>
Samsung and SK Hynix together account for about 18% of global semiconductor output. SK Hynix has said it diversified supplies and secured sufficient inventory &mdash; but the clock is ticking.
Helium consultant Phil Kornbluth warned at a Gasworld webinar that if the outage extends beyond two weeks, industrial gas distributors could be forced to relocate cryogenic equipment and revalidate supplier relationships &mdash; a process that could stretch over months.
If the damage to Ras Laffan is severe, recovery could take far longer. &ldquo;The current shutdown in Qatar could significantly reduce global chip manufacturing if plants can&rsquo;t get enough helium,&rdquo; Matt says. &ldquo;A shortage of AI chips will dramatically increase prices.&rdquo;
For traders paying attention, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) &mdash; which holds most of these companies &mdash; is already well off its February highs. Matt sees a potential short opportunity in either SMH or TSM if the situation deteriorates further.
A war in the Middle East. A drone strike on a gas complex. No balloons. And maybe no chips.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;There&rsquo;s no sugarcoating it &mdash; geopolitical tensions are creating some real [macro] headwinds right now,&rdquo; says Paradigm&rsquo;s wealth-and-income authority Zach Scheidt.
&ldquo;Right now, it seems that traditional, heavy-industry names are taking the brunt of the damage,&rdquo; he notes, &ldquo;with the Dow suffering consecutive drops as the [Mideast] conflict intensifies and capital derisks.
&ldquo;But while the Dow takes on water and the headlines scream panic, a much more resilient story is playing out in the tech sector.
&ldquo;Despite the intense geopolitical pressure, traders have been stepping in (albeit timidly) to buy the dips here and there on tech names that have been heavily pressured.
&ldquo;Even on down days,the Nasdaq has fought its way back to close well off its lows, showing a clear unwillingness from buyers to completely capitulate.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;The most encouraging sign of relative strength this week has been in software,&rdquo; Zach says.
&ldquo;Recently, the sector suffered an aggressive, overblown sell-off driven by a flawed narrative: the idea that AI would somehow allow every company to easily write their own software from scratch.
&ldquo;The current market environment is proving that thesis wrong. Established, bulletproof software platforms aren&rsquo;t going anywhere,&rdquo; he adds.
&ldquo;Amidst the surging oil prices and Dow weakness, the software sector has held up decently well.
&ldquo;After intense selling, it feels like these stocks have successfully carved out a hard floor of support, dismissing the AI fears and signaling that the previous wave of selling has largely exhausted itself.&rdquo;
Zach&rsquo;s takeaway: &ldquo;We&rsquo;re in the middle of a massive stress test; some sectors are feeling the squeeze. But if you look past the surface-level panic, the price action is actually telling a pretty interesting story.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Turning to the markets today, the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (IGV) &mdash; a benchmark for software stocks &mdash; is up 1.50%. 
That might not seem like much, but in early February, IGV was down more than 20% YTD. The sector seems to be steadily climbing its way out of bear market territory.
The three major U.S. indexes are all seeing green on this St. Patrick&rsquo;s Day. The Dow, Nasdaq and S&amp;P 500 are all up about 0.50% to 47,180, 22,430 and 6,730 respectively.
As for commodities, crude is up over 1%, priced at $94.50 for a barrel of WTI. It&rsquo;s a mixed bag, however, for precious metals. Gold&rsquo;s up 0.25% to $5,015.50 per ounce; at the same time, silver&rsquo;s down 0.55% to $80.25.
The crypto market? Bitcoin&rsquo;s up 0.35% to $74,310, and Ethereum&rsquo;s barely hanging onto green at $2,330.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Rickards: Pre-FOMC Prediction
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The Federal Reserve meets this week, and our macro expert Jim Rickards says the decision itself is almost pre-written. &ldquo;The expected outcome for the Fed meeting on March 18 will be no change in the Fed&rsquo;s target rate,&rdquo; he says.
Accordingly, rates will likely stay parked at 3.75%, where they&rsquo;ve been since December 2025.
The Fed&rsquo;s broader dilemma is familiar by now. Inflation has cooled but remains above the central bank&rsquo;s 2% target &mdash; while the labor market is starting to weaken.
The latest employment report shows the U.S. lost 92,000 jobs in February, pushing the unemployment rate up to 4.4%. That was a surprise for economists, who expected modest job gains instead.
Ordinarily, a weakening labor market would push the Fed toward cutting rates. But a geopolitical shock has complicated the picture.
When the U.S.-Israel war with Iran sent oil markets into chaos, prices briefly surged from $65 to $120 per barrel before settling lower &mdash; but still far above prewar levels. Gasoline has followed the same path.
&ldquo;Higher energy prices increase the price of almost everything, not just gas at the pump,&rdquo; Jim notes. That inflation risk is enough to keep the Fed on hold for now.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The real drama isn&rsquo;t the interest-rate decision. It&rsquo;s Jerome Powell&rsquo;s final stretch as Fed chair, unfolding against a backdrop of war, politics and a brewing economic slowdown.
Powell&rsquo;s term as Fed chair expires in May, and President Trump has already nominated former Fed governor Kevin Warsh to replace him.
At the same time, the White House is publicly pressuring Powell to cut rates immediately &mdash; something he has resisted.
Jim sees the Fed&rsquo;s decision this week as part economic judgment, part institutional showdown. &ldquo;Powell will have good reason to hold rates steady&hellip; but he will have the added satisfaction of poking a stick in Donald Trump&rsquo;s eye.&rdquo;
For now, the Fed chair still holds the gavel, in a matter of speaking. &ldquo;Powell will have won the feud, but the economy will have lost the war,&rdquo; Jim concludes.
We&rsquo;ll know more when Powell takes questions after Wednesday&rsquo;s announcement &mdash; and we&rsquo;ll break down the fallout for you afterward.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Tech Turning Point 2026
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Peter Steinberger spent 13 years building PDF tools in Austria. Then, in November 2025, he sat down and built a prototype in roughly one hour. 
&ldquo;He wasn&rsquo;t trying to change the world. He was just annoyed that something didn&rsquo;t exist &mdash; so he &lsquo;vibe coded&rsquo; it into existence.
&ldquo;That one-hour experiment became OpenClaw &mdash; the fastest-growing repository in GitHub history, with over 175,000 stars,&rdquo; says Paradigm editor, and James Altucher&rsquo;s close colleague, Chris Campbell.
GitHub is the world&rsquo;s largest platform where developers share code &mdash; think of it as a public library for software. Linux, the operating system powering most of the world&rsquo;s servers, &ldquo;took 30 years to reach similar milestones,&rdquo; Chris says. &ldquo;OpenClaw did it in three weeks.&rdquo;
So what actually is OpenClaw? While every AI assistant you&rsquo;ve ever used &mdash; ChatGPT, Siri, Alexa &mdash; is reactive, OpenClaw is different. Chris describes it as an &ldquo;autonomous agent.&rdquo;
You connect it to messaging apps (for instance, WhatsApp or Telegram). &ldquo;Give it access to your computer, your files, your email, your calendar. And then it just... runs.&rdquo;
According to Chris: &ldquo;It feels less like using software and more like texting a very capable friend who happens to have root access to your computer.&rdquo;
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang framed the bigger picture from the GTC stage yesterday: &ldquo;The last prompt was what is, when is, who is. This new prompt goes create, do, build, write.&rdquo;
Chris&rsquo; verdict: &ldquo;AI went from answering questions to taking actions. That&rsquo;s the whole ballgame.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Here's the investment angle &mdash; and it&rsquo;s enormous,&rdquo; Chris continues.
&ldquo;A normal AI conversation uses a modest amount of computing power,&rdquo; he says. &ldquo;[But] continuous OpenClaw agents running in the background may consume up to 1 million times more [units of work].
&ldquo;This is why Nvidia is celebrating a software project it didn&rsquo;t build.
&ldquo;Every OpenClaw agent [is] another reason to buy more chips. More agents = more compute = more Blackwell GPUs = more revenue.&rdquo;
Chris underscores: &ldquo;The hardware thesis just got a second wind.&rdquo;
But there&rsquo;s a caveat: &ldquo;For agents to truly work &mdash; to help manage your inbox, run your experiments, coordinate your team, operate your business &mdash; they need to remember.
&ldquo;Persistently. Across sessions. Across tasks. Across time.
&ldquo;Right now, the entire agentic AI industry is built on a foundation that doesn&rsquo;t (yet) have this solved.
&ldquo;Whoever cracks it first doesn&rsquo;t just win a product category,&rdquo; Chris summarizes. &ldquo;They become the connective tissue of every agentic deployment on Earth.&rdquo;
[That&rsquo;s the conversation James and Chris will be having at exactly 2:00 pm EST TODAY, live at GTC 2026 in San Jose, California.
Beyond that, James and his team have an incredible lineup covering all things related to AI, robotics and so much more.
<a id="5"></a>
If you&rsquo;re serious about understanding where technology is heading &mdash; and where the real money gets made &mdash; you need to be in the room.
<a href="https://paradigmpresslive.com/TechTurningPoint2026">Here&rsquo;s your access to this FREE event: Tech Turning Point 2026.]</a>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Farewell, for Now
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> After nearly nine years, this is my last regular issue of 5 Bullets &mdash; and I find myself struggling to find words to mark the occasion.
This chapter began with a leap of faith &mdash; Dave Gonigam&rsquo;s leap of faith, really. He took a chance on someone who had spent almost 13 years away from the workforce raising children. That was not a small thing. It was a risk, and he took it anyway. Everything that followed flows from that one act of generosity.
Dave has been a mentor, a teacher, a sounding board and a friend. I came to work for him as a complete novice. What I leave with &mdash; the instincts, the love of the work &mdash; I owe in no small part to him.
I also want to shine a light on the people you never see but without whom none of this would exist: copy editor Erik, marketer Colleen and the email team &mdash; Tyler, Heather and Oscar &mdash; who keep the whole machine humming, issue after issue. This newsletter has always been a group effort. I just happen to have a byline.
I&rsquo;ve been incredibly fortunate &mdash; in my husband, my family, my friends. Yes, I count Dave and the Paradigm team among them, without hesitation.
As for what&rsquo;s next, I&rsquo;m not going far. I&rsquo;ll still serve as contributing editor at our 5 Bullets highlight issue every Saturday. Plus, I&rsquo;ll be deepening my craft on Jim Rickards&rsquo; team, a new role I&rsquo;m genuinely excited to grow into.
And then there&rsquo;s you, reader. Some of you I know by first name from the mailbag. A few of you I&rsquo;ve had the rare pleasure to meet in person. You have made this work feel like a conversation rather than a broadcast.
Thank you. For your time, your trust and your loyalty. It has meant everything.

FMF-Issue-031726(Featured)

One Noble Gas, No Substitute 

FMF-Issue-031626(Featured)

Trump Seeking Escorts

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Mortgage Rates, the War and Inflation
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> If you&rsquo;re in the market to buy a home, your shot at a sub-6% mortgage has come and gone &mdash; thanks to the Iran war.
Freddie Mac issued its weekly read on mortgage rates yesterday: The average 30-year fixed is back up to 6.11%.
For a brief moment late last month, the average rate dipped under 6% for the first time since September 2022. Then Tel Aviv and Washington launched their war on Iran and it&rsquo;s all over now.
Mortgage rates are highly correlated to the rate on 10-year Treasury notes. For much of February, the rate on a 10-year T-note was moving down, down, down. It looked as if we were headed for a sustained period under 4% &mdash; something we hadn&rsquo;t experienced since the late summer and early fall of 2024.
Then came the war. And rising oil prices. And fears of rising inflation. Rising inflation pushes long-term interest rates higher because bond investors want to be compensated for holding a fixed-income asset while inflation is rising.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5K7yBhr7HHr3GbLAxIl5Ym/de4add5d83de159982298aa75d194cbe/3.13_5Bullets_Chart.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Checking our screens, the 10-year rate is 4.28%. As mentioned here a few days ago, if it breaks over 4.3%... it could be the start of a sustained uptrend.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Even going into the war, inflation was on the rise.
The Commerce Department came out this morning with &ldquo;core PCE&rdquo; &mdash; the Federal Reserve&rsquo;s preferred measure of inflation.
It&rsquo;s the January number, delayed by the partial government shutdown. And it clocks in at 3.1% &mdash; the highest since March of 2024. The number&rsquo;s been moving steadily higher since last spring.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7zUSAldpX61bTwzG5Wpu0g/89f49f1f29cf0ff89e2b25857246cdd2/5Bullets_inflation.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
And with that, any hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut short-term interest rates is out the window. Looking at the action in the futures market this morning, traders are betting the first cut won&rsquo;t come for another six months &mdash; and even then you&rsquo;re looking at only a 50-50 chance.
Take another look at that chart and the sub-2% inflation going into the pandemic. &ldquo;This is not the 2010&ndash;2020 period,&rdquo; Bianco Research chief Jim Bianco tells the MacroVoices podcast.
&ldquo;And if we have enough inflation now because of the rise in crude oil we&rsquo;re seeing, because of the rise in gasoline that we&rsquo;re seeing now, to keep the inflation rate above 3%, the Fed is just off the table. They just cannot step in and start cutting rates under that environment.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s even if the economy starts to wobble by conventional measures.
➢ And on that score, the Commerce Department is also out this morning with a revised reading of fourth-quarter GDP. The previous guess of an annualized 1.4% growth rate has been slashed in half to 0.7%.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Even without the war, inflation was already baked into the cake for the rest of this decade.
It comes back to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/declare-your-independence-from-inflation">the research we&rsquo;ve been citing for nearly three years now</a>: Once inflation sails past 5% &mdash; as it did in 2022 thanks to all the pandemic money-printing &mdash; it takes an average of 10 years to get back to &ldquo;normal&rdquo; 2% inflation.
That means the winning asset classes for the rest of the 2020s will be very much like the ones of the inflationary 1970s &mdash; precious metals, base metals, energy. Commodities. Natural resources. Tangible stuff.
<a id="2"></a>
Even with gold up over 60% in the last 12 months, it&rsquo;s not too late.
Oh &mdash; did we just say &ldquo;pandemic&rdquo; a few moments ago?
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />COVID = Iran War?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> It was six years ago today &mdash; also a Friday the 13th &mdash; that President Trump declared a national emergency. 
The journalist and famed COVID dissident Alex Berenson sees ominous parallels between lockdown then and the Iran war now.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3QOns4obfiAiYiR1jIo3J5/fc69558172a1506d1191796fa7540dff/FMF-Issue-031326_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Chilling when you consider <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/covid-9-11#2">the hell that was unleashed the following Monday</a> in 2020.
What might transpire between now and this Monday, while markets are closed?
In the last week, there&rsquo;s been growing chatter in the Beltway about sending in ground troops to seize Iran&rsquo;s big oil terminal at Kharg Island.
Located about 15 miles off the Iranian mainland in the northern Persian Gulf, Kharg processes about 90% of Iran&rsquo;s crude exports. It&rsquo;s a safe bet the leaders in Tehran view Kharg as existential.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> An attack on Kharg all but guarantees Tehran will aim to retaliate by destroying as much oil infrastructure as it can in the Gulf sheikdoms.
For the moment, the problem with global oil flows is that oil is stranded by Iran&rsquo;s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
That&rsquo;s a somewhat solvable problem should the war wind down soon. It would take time to restart terminals that are currently filled to capacity &mdash; you don&rsquo;t just flip a switch &mdash; but the system can normalize over time.
On the other hand, if oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE gets blown to bits by Iranian missiles? Forget it.
Maybe that&rsquo;s what a spokesman for Iran&rsquo;s Revolutionary Guard Corps had in mind this week when he said, &ldquo;If you can tolerate oil at more than $200 per barrel &mdash; continue this game.&rdquo;
In the meantime, crude has pulled back a bit from this time 24 hours ago &mdash; a barrel of West Texas Intermediate a shade under $96. We&rsquo;re still on track for the highest weekly close since the summer of 2022.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The major U.S. stock indexes have found a floor for the moment after yesterday&rsquo;s sharp sell-off.
At last check the S&amp;P 500 is down about a third of a percent to 6,651 &mdash; a level last seen during Thanksgiving week. The Nasdaq is down about two-thirds of a percent but the Dow is slightly in the green.
Gold is slightly in the red but still comfortably over $5,000. Silver, however has been knocked down three bucks to $80.77
Bitcoin staged a huge rally starting last night&hellip; and gave back half of it in a matter of moments at midmorning. After nearly bursting past the $74,000 level it&rsquo;s back under $72K. Ethereum, for the moment, is still over $2,100.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />War Follow-Ups
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The warnings we&rsquo;ve aired in the last week about a U.S. shortage of missiles &mdash; from our own Jim Rickards and from outside experts like retired Army combat officer Daniel Davis &mdash; is breaking into the mainstream.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/58d7LN0CZkktjFGyuNjqwR/cb68dd622ef4b1aa32293ac3bf92143e/FMF-Issue-031326_4_.png" alt="pub" width="484px" />
The Financial Times is zeroing in on Tomahawk missiles &mdash; a &ldquo;massive expenditure&rdquo; of them, according to one anonymous source. &ldquo;The Navy will be feeling this expenditure for several years.&rdquo;
The Pentagon will likely go to Congress in the coming days to ask for another $50 billion to wage the war.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Depending on how you do the counting, the Pentagon has already burned through nearly 40% of that total.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/sb5T19FHj8OdSzwWWf7eX/595df16750158707ce14a2d9d2c1e4b7/FMF-Issue-031326_5_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<a href="https://iran-cost-ticker.com/">The Iran War Cost Tracker</a> has revised its methodology &mdash; and upped its estimate of the war&rsquo;s cost to date accordingly.
Pentagon officials told Congress this week that the first six days of the war cost $11.3 billion. Add to that the previously reported estimate of $1 billion a day, and we&rsquo;re pushing $19 billion at midday today.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The mainstream is also catching up to our warnings days ago about the ongoing deindustrialization of Germany.
&ldquo;Surging Energy Costs Put German Industry &lsquo;Really in Danger,&rdquo; says The New York Times.
Gee, you don&rsquo;t say? We were saying the same thing <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/go-ask-germany">last week</a>. Actually we&rsquo;ve been tracking the slow-motion decline ever since German leaders engaged in an epic moment of virtue-signaling in 2022, deciding to wean their people off Russian natural gas.
Of course, they wouldn&rsquo;t have been so dependent on Russian natural gas if German leaders hadn&rsquo;t decided a decade earlier to shutter all their nuclear power.
Now Germany is resorting to dirty old coal to keep the lights on and the factories humming &mdash; and it&rsquo;s barely enough.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Comic Relief
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Lordy, do we need some comic relief as the week winds down. Although, really, this is too easy&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6RL1A05XckJ9UXlUnPcurI/9ae8b7bbba914b8fa24f4d81929379e8/FMF-Issue-031326_6_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Heck, let&rsquo;s do a double dose&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/52GQgpHzImtrpVwLqZyU9J/27b62bdb90afb5b0a4095e707b9dc250/FMF-Issue-031326_7_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: &ldquo;Degrading the Country&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/drill-baby-drill-california-edition">Yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a> prompted the following reader complaint&hellip;
&ldquo;Hey Dave, if you have so much angst for the country that lets you run off at the mouth and degrade it, why don't you go back to Ireland with Rosie O.? The negativity is getting a little old.&rdquo;
Dave responds:In the first place, I&rsquo;m primarily of German extraction. As far as I know, nothing traces to Ireland. You&rsquo;ll have to find another revolting celebrity with whom to tar me by association.
In the second place &mdash; <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/9-11-the-financial-crisis-and-covid">and as I showed last year</a> &mdash; any &ldquo;negativity&rdquo; on my part stems from an idealism rooted in this country&rsquo;s founding values.
And on the subject of those values&hellip; the &ldquo;country&rdquo; doesn&rsquo;t &ldquo;let&rdquo; anyone speak up. Nor does the Constitution grant that right, as many people mistakenly believe. The Constitution recognizes we already possess that right simply by virtue of being human.
Judge Andrew Napolitano clarified in a column last fall. When helping draft the Bill of Rights, James Madison &ldquo;insisted that the word &lsquo;the&rsquo; precede the phrase &lsquo;freedom of speech&rsquo; in what was to become the First Amendment, so as to reflect the views of the Framers that the freedom of speech preexisted the government. Madison believed that pre-political rights, which he enumerated in the Bill of Rights, are natural to our humanity.&rdquo;
So as long as Paradigm Press is kind enough to furnish a platform where I can &ldquo;run off at the mouth,&rdquo; I will use it from time to time to say a provocative thing or two about war and peace &mdash; mindful of the Founders&rsquo; wisdom on those topics&hellip;
<blockquote>The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible&hellip;</blockquote>
<blockquote>A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.</blockquote>
&mdash; George Washington&rsquo;s farewell address, 1796
<blockquote>&hellip; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none&hellip;</blockquote>
&mdash; Thomas Jefferson&rsquo;s first inaugural, 1801
<blockquote>Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few&hellip; No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.</blockquote>
&mdash; James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
Our politicians <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/a-totalitarian-bureaucracy-within-our-shores">lost sight of these values</a> after World War II was won. We&rsquo;ve lived in a state of permanent mobilization for war since the advent of the Truman Doctrine in 1947.
The military-industrial complex has been &ldquo;eating out our substance&rdquo; &mdash; to borrow from Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence &mdash; ever since.
Armies, debts and taxes indeed.
And with the present war underway, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) recognizes where it&rsquo;s all going&hellip;
<blockquote>The costs of this war will put added pressure on the Federal Reserve to&hellip; increase its purchase of Treasury bonds in order to monetize the federal debt. The pressure on the Fed will also increase as other countries reduce their purchase of U.S. debt. These reductions will be motivated by concerns over the economic instability caused by the U.S. government&rsquo;s out-of-control spending and by resentment over the U.S. government&rsquo;s hyperinterventionist foreign policy. These factors could also accelerate the increasing rejection of the dollar&rsquo;s world reserve currency status. A loss of the reserve currency status will cause a dollar crisis, leading to an economic crash worse than the Great Depression.</blockquote>
<blockquote>This crash will likely result in the end of the welfare-warfare-fiat money system. Whether this system is replaced by an even more authoritarian one or by a system of limited government and much more freedom depends on whether those of us who know the truth do our best to spread the message that the key to peace and prosperity is a system of free markets, limited government, individual liberty and peaceful relations and free trade with all nations.</blockquote>
If espousing these values amounts to &ldquo;degrading the country,&rdquo; sir, so be it.

FMF-Issue-031326(Featured)

COVID = Iran War?

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Drill, Baby, Drill (California Edition)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Amid the flurry of oil-and-war headlines yesterday, the story got lost in the shuffle.
&ldquo;President Donald Trump is preparing to invoke Cold War-era powers to pave the way for renewed oil production off the southern California coast,&rdquo; Bloomberg reported &mdash; &ldquo;a long-shot bid to help ease the global crude supply crunch spurred by his war with Iran.&rdquo;
The plan is to invoke the Defense Production Act of 1950 to quash California state law and clear the way for an outfit called Sable Offshore Corp. (SOC) to restart production at a cluster of platforms off Santa Barbara.
Those rigs have been effectively shut in since 2015 &mdash; when California regulators closed the pipelines necessary to bring the oil onshore.
The news sent shares of SOC roaring 34% higher at their peak yesterday. This morning, they&rsquo;re trading at a five-month high.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The Trump administration&rsquo;s approach here is right in line with other steps it&rsquo;s taken in the last 14 months &mdash; leveraging the authority of the federal government to secure minerals it sees as critical for the economy and the military.
Really, invoking the Defense Production Act to goose oil output is the next logical step. Last month brought the announcement of Project Vault &mdash; a $10 billion taxpayer-backed loan to start a critical-minerals stockpile for automakers, aerospace firms and energy producers.
And of course starting last year the federal government took equity stakes in several natural-resource companies &mdash; the rare-earth name MP Materials, the copper-zinc firm Trilogy Metals and the lithium miner Lithium Americas among others.
Members of the Paradigm Mastermind Group were positioned ahead of time when the feds announced they were taking a stake in USA Rare Earth (USAR).
It was a rare instance when Jim Rickards, James Altucher and Enrique Abeyta &mdash; three experts with vastly differing investment approaches &mdash; were in consensus on a single name. During our &ldquo;All-In&rdquo; Summit back on Aug. 7, they all sang the praises of USAR.
Result? Readers bagged a 180.1% gain in a little over two months. Jim, James and Enrique recommended selling half the position&hellip; and letting the rest ride, awaiting the next profit catalyst.
For the record, the three of them passed on Sable Offshore. Sable makes headlines every few months, but the price action is just too volatile. As Bloomberg&rsquo;s story puts it, &ldquo;The company&rsquo;s shares have seen sharp swings and multiple trading halts in the last year.&rdquo; Too risky.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Besides, our trio of experts is much more excited right now about an opportunity faraway from the natural resource sector. 
They&rsquo;re expecting an announcement from Nvidia next week that will mark a huge leap in &ldquo;aAI&rdquo; or autonomous AI &mdash; where AI meets robotics and automation.
The announcement comes Monday &mdash; only four days from now, when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to name the tiny software company Nvidia is partnering with to make it all possible. Profit potential &mdash; an estimated 2,566%.
Paradigm Mastermind Group readers are already positioned ahead of this announcement. And it&rsquo;s not too late for you to join them. <a href="https://pro.paradigm-press.info/m/2514046"> Click here to check out this updated presentation featuring Jim, James and Enrique right away.</a>
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />So Long, SPR, Been Nice Knowing You
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;The end of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as we know it,&rdquo; quips Paradigm&rsquo;s resident oil field geologist Byron King.
As mentioned here yesterday, the 32 member states of the International Energy Agency have agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves.
Last night, the Trump administration announced the United States would kick in nearly half that total &mdash; 172 million barrels &mdash; from the government&rsquo;s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in the salt caverns of Texas and Louisiana.
If you&rsquo;re a longer-term reader, you might be wondering: Wait, didn&rsquo;t the Biden administration drain the SPR at some crazy-unprecedented rate? And has it been replenished?
The answers are &ldquo;yes&rdquo; and &ldquo;not much.&rdquo;
Here&rsquo;s a chart of the SPR&rsquo;s level going all the way back to when the government started filling it during Ronald Reagan&rsquo;s first term.
Many presidents have tinkered with the SPR to achieve political outcomes &mdash; but Joe Biden literally took it to a whole new level amid $5-a-gallon gasoline in 2022, with midterm elections looming.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4eKAE6Gbz2lC8ZilZ2lOnL/816cb421bfbe55cdd4bbdda88cf224dc/5Bullets_SPRchart_0312.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
The Biden administration started refiling the SPR in 2024 &mdash; veeerrry slowwwly &mdash; and the Trump administration carried on at that glacial pace last year.
At present the level is a little over 415 million barrels. Draining 172 million would bring the level down to where it is on the very left of that chart.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> At which point the damage to the SPR salt walls would be nearly beyond repair. 
Byron King explains how drawing crude from the SPR actually works: &ldquo;Imagine a big glass jar filled with oil. The glass represents the salt, in that it doesn&rsquo;t dissolve due to contact with oil.
&ldquo;But it gets complicated because to move the oil upward, the trick is to pump saltwater down to the bottom of the oil column. And then, because oil floats on water due to density differences, when it comes time to withdraw oil the pumps just lift the petroleum off the top.&rdquo;
Well, the &ldquo;Biden bleed&rdquo; had the effect of cracking the glass jar &mdash; or to be precise, damaging some of the salt walls. &ldquo;The walls thinned out and weakened, which required significant, expensive and technically challenging repairs.&rdquo;
The original idea behind the SPR in the 1970s was to store a massive quantity of oil, &ldquo;then pretty much draw down in a one-and-done event &mdash; an absolute submarines-sinking-tankers emergency,&rdquo; Byron says. It wasn&rsquo;t set up for something like this.
And the damage only gets worse with a further drawdown. &ldquo;As you get down to the lower &lsquo;half&rsquo; of the barrels, you get into sediment and crud that has settled out over the years. You&rsquo;re pulling out oil that&rsquo;s more viscous, with higher solids in it.&rdquo;
It can damage pumps. It flows through pipelines at a snail&rsquo;s pace. Refineries have a hard time processing it.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And it doesn&rsquo;t even solve the immediate problem.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright says the release will take place over a four-month span. Which works out to about 1.4 million barrels a day.
For perspective, that&rsquo;s about 6.9% of the country&rsquo;s oil consumption &mdash; roughly 20.4 million barrels a day.
For further perspective, the fastest pace at which the Biden administration was able to drain the SPR was 1 million barrels a day &mdash; considerably less than Wright&rsquo;s promise.
And the coup de grace, according to a post on X from Geiger Capital: After this release, China will have a strategic oil reserve five times the size of America&rsquo;s.
No, China is not a member of the International Energy Agency. It is not one of the 32 countries taking part in this global coordinated release.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Oil Soaring Again
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> As for progress of the war&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/l5QWXbABJjfUhSJGOvS0A/22c506c1aa7f39f2f560358c2800e16b/FMF-Issue-031226_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Iran&rsquo;s new Supreme Leader &mdash; the son of the one killed by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes &mdash; just delivered his first public statement, read aloud by an announcer on state TV.
The upshot is that Tehran will continue to use the &ldquo;lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz.&rdquo; As such, the Iranian military has attacked at least three more foreign cargo ships in or near the Strait.
At last check, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up over $10 to $97.17. That&rsquo;s still lower than it was before Donald Trump&rsquo;s <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/what-if-iran-wins">&ldquo;very complete, pretty much&rdquo;</a> jawboning on Monday afternoon &mdash; but not much lower.
The aforementioned Energy Secretary Chris Wright tells CNBC the U.S. Navy is &ldquo;not ready&rdquo; to start escorting oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. (CNBC failed to ask him about <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/no-fertilizer-no-food#4">his botched market-moving tweet</a> on Tuesday because of course.)
And whenever the Navy is &ldquo;ready,&rdquo; it faces a herculean task, according to The Economist.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5Rc9LAGxAz44oXyoo2kr1o/43f9047da8c15e4f9de49bfef23b63be/FMF-Issue-031226_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
And all of this comes amid figures from the shipping-data firm Kpler that show Iran is now exporting more oil than it did before the war began.
The Financial Times describes the U.S.-Israeli effort as &ldquo;a rare joint military campaign that has little precedent. Israel since its independence in 1948 has almost exclusively fought alone. The sole exception was during the Suez Crisis, waged seven decades ago with Britain and France, two fading colonial powers forced into ignominious retreat.&rdquo;
The article let that historical tidbit hang, without elaborating on any parallels to the present moment. Draw your own conclusions&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> As for stocks, &ldquo;we should expect this choppy action to continue,&rdquo; Greg Guenthner tells his Trading Desk readers.
&ldquo;The herd is getting bearish and mixed messaging about the war that isn&rsquo;t helping investor confidence right now. We need to expect overreactions to any and all Iran headlines.&rdquo; As such, he&rsquo;s not laying on any new trades today.
As we write, all the major indexes are down 1%, give or take. The S&amp;P 500 rests at 6,710. If that number holds by day&rsquo;s end, it will be the lowest close since late November and about 4% below its record high in late January.
On the flipside, &ldquo;I'm very impressed with crypto here,&rdquo; says Greg. &ldquo;I think we could see a bigger upside move if BTC and ETH continue to hold up.&rdquo; Bitcoin continues to hover over $70,000 while Ethereum sits at $2,073.
Precious metals? Quiet by recent standards, gold still over $5,100 and silver a hair below $85.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />$100 Million Gold Mystery
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Back to the Trump admin&rsquo;s minerals policy&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3CMmbx2Qsc0pEbA0Vo1dMT/f2fa2e3407adb1a61bb128bf82b64a67/FMF-Issue-031226_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
There&rsquo;s not a lot of coverage fleshing out this story. As near as we can tell, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum was in Venezuela last week meeting with acting President Delcy Rodriguez and representatives of a couple dozen natural resource firms.
&ldquo;After the meeting,&rdquo; reports an Indian news outlet, &ldquo;Burgum said Venezuela&rsquo;s government had given security assurances to mining companies interested in investing in the country, where mineral-rich areas have long been controlled by guerrilla groups, gangs and other illegal actors.&rdquo;
The mind boggles with questions. Who&rsquo;s going to provide security? Who&rsquo;s going to cover the cost? Will it be the U.S. taxpayer?
As we said shortly after the administration kidnapped President Nicolas Maduro at the start of the year, it would be trivially easy for leftist paramilitaries to sabotage Venezuelan pipelines in the middle of nowhere to ensure the Yanquis are deprived of the country&rsquo;s oil wealth,
And then there was the bit about the gold: &ldquo;On Friday,&rdquo; Burgum told Fox News, &ldquo;$100 million worth of gold came from Venezuela to the U.S., both for industrial purposes and other commercial uses.&rdquo;
Really? &ldquo;Industrial&rdquo; and &ldquo;commercial&rdquo; uses of gold make up about 6% of global gold demand &mdash; electronics, dentistry, etc. (The rest is for jewelry, coins and bars.)
Again the mind boggles: Which companies are getting this gold? How is the administration choosing them? Are they paying a discounted price? And who&rsquo;s getting paid?
Inquiring minds want to know!
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Fertilizer
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> On the subject of a looming fertilizer shortage thanks to Iran&rsquo;s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, a reader issues a brief and pointed proposition&hellip;
&ldquo;Great! Farmers can return to organic farming and Americans will be healthier.&rdquo;
Dave responds: Don&rsquo;t disagree in theory&hellip; but I&rsquo;m not sure that&rsquo;s very high on the agenda of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Domestically, getting from here to there would be exceptionally challenging. As former RFK adviser Charles Eisenstein wrote in his 2022 collection of essays The Coronation, widespread organic food production would be much more labor-intensive than the current practices of Big Agra.
Not that there&rsquo;s anything wrong with that. If AI is going to put legions of white-collar workers out of a job, there are worse things they could do than grow healthy food. (Whether it pays as well is another question.)
Overseas, getting from here to there would be impossible. The &ldquo;Green Revolution&rdquo; and its widespread use of fertilizers made it possible to feed hundreds of millions of mouths in the developing world, people who otherwise would have never been born or who would have starved to death at a young age.
In the present moment, former CIA officer Larry Johnson says India and Brazil are in grave danger in the event of an extended Hormuz blockade &mdash; with Bangladesh not far behind.
In contrast, the United States and Canada will fare reasonably well. Ditto for oil and natural gas.
Brings to mind the quip attributed to Germany&rsquo;s &ldquo;Iron Chancellor&rdquo; Otto von Bismarck: "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards and the United States of America."

FMF-Issue-031226(Featured)

Drill, Baby, Drill (California Edition)

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />No Fertilizer, No Food
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The original concept behind today&rsquo;s edition was to take a break from the war and turn our attention to other matters &mdash; at least for Bullet No. 1 and hopefully 2.
Then came the message from our natural resources pro Matt Badiali: &ldquo;The list of unintended consequences of this war gets longer every day. At a minimum, we are facing massive inflation by summer. High fuel prices add a cost to everything transported. And either customers pay it or the companies eat it&hellip;&rdquo;
Whelp, let&rsquo;s dive in.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> First example &mdash; fertilizer. As mentioned in Monday&rsquo;s edition, 35&ndash;40% of the world&rsquo;s fertilizer supply transits the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranian military has now closed to Western vessels.
Great timing too &mdash; planting season in the Northern Hemisphere.
&ldquo;The effects are likely to materialize with a six&ndash;nine month lag through weaker crop yields, resulting in higher food inflation, tighter grain stocks and elevated food security risks for import-dependent countries,&rdquo; says a note from Nikos Tagoulis &mdash; senior analyst at Intermodal Shipbroking, a leading Greek shipping firm.
&ldquo;Higher fertilizer prices, shipment delays and rising freight costs, further compounded by surging bunker [fuel] prices, are likely to force farmers either to reduce nutrient application or absorb higher input costs. Unlike oil, fertilizers lack meaningful strategic reserves&hellip;&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Next example &mdash; helium. &ldquo;No helium, no semiconductors,&rdquo; says a pithy tweet from an analyst at Citrini Research that Matt spotted.
As we&rsquo;ve chronicled in years gone by, helium is useful for much more than just party balloons &mdash; everything from MRIs to, yes, semiconductors.
As it happens, much of the world&rsquo;s helium supply is a byproduct of natural gas production. About one-third of global helium production comes from Qatar &mdash; and that supply is now shut in because, again, the Strait of Hormuz is closed.
The Citrini post says South Korean chipmakers Samsung and SK Hynix are especially concerned. That&rsquo;s because two-thirds of Korea&rsquo;s helium supply comes from Qatar.
➢ Meanwhile, more than a quarter of Korea&rsquo;s helium supply comes from the United States. Presumably producers of liquefied natural gas like Cheniere Energy (LNG) would be a beneficiary should the war drag on.
Back to Matt Badiali: &ldquo;Add fertilizer and helium to the list of critical commodities now. Less fertilizer means lower crop yields and higher prices. Less helium means fewer chips made, so the cost of AI is going up. This is a massive macroeconomics lesson being learned at the world&rsquo;s expense.&rdquo;
There&rsquo;s other war-related business to attend to today, but now let&rsquo;s turn our attention to something else&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />Sorry, You Can&rsquo;t Have Your Money Now (Continued)
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> The dirty snowball known as private credit is gathering speed as it rolls downhill.
We first tipped you off to the problem last fall &mdash; when the auto parts maker First Brands filed for bankruptcy. First Brands financed its operations through the &ldquo;private credit&rdquo; market &mdash; loans that were once the province of banks but are now dominated by players like Blackstone, Apollo and KKR. (Non-bank financial institutions or NBIFs, they&rsquo;re called.)
Then as we related last month, the private credit group Blue Owl told investors in one of its funds that they could no longer pull their money out on demand. Instead Blue Owl would pay out investors on a schedule of Blue Owl&rsquo;s choosing.
Last week, it was the turn of the giant asset manager BlackRock: &ldquo;That firm put up gates on their flagship $26 billion HPS Corporate Lending Fund,&rdquo; says Paradigm macroeconomics maven Jim Rickards.
&ldquo;As of now, investors can only withdraw 5% of their investment. The remaining 95% is locked into a sinking ship.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Much of the private credit fund industry has remained afloat by not selling assets, which means you can pretend valuations are higher than the market would support,&rdquo; Jim goes on.
&ldquo;Once the investor redemptions begin, the manager must sell assets to pay the redemptions, which quickly reveals that the bottom has fallen out of valuations. That&rsquo;s when the gates go up on redemptions.
&ldquo;The entire private credit and NBIF sector is now in a state of panic. What&rsquo;s more dangerous is that NBIFs get their funding from major commercial banks. This means bank loan losses and lower bank stock valuations are next.&rdquo;
As we said last month, the situation definitely echoes the 2008 financial crisis &mdash; but the fallout isn&rsquo;t likely to be anywhere near as severe.
But when the situation is coupled with war-related economic disruptions&hellip; the consequences could be more problematic.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />&ldquo;Real Breakthroughs&rdquo; Coming Next Week
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Helium shortages notwithstanding, an event known as &ldquo;the Super Bowl of AI&rdquo; is still on for next week.
It&rsquo;s Nvidia&rsquo;s annual GTC gathering in San Jose, California. GTC is short for &ldquo;GPU Technology Conference&rdquo; &mdash; focusing on the graphics processing units that are Nvidia&rsquo;s bread-and-butter.
&ldquo;Every year, there&rsquo;s a moment when the future of technology suddenly becomes clearer,&rdquo; says Paradigm AI authority James Altucher &mdash; &ldquo;not from headlines, not from analysts on TV, but from the engineers, founders and builders who are actually creating the next wave.&rdquo;
James will be on hand. And as soon as he gets a look at everything unfolding there, he&rsquo;ll host a livestream special where he&rsquo;ll break down what it all means &mdash; &ldquo;not just the flashy announcements but the real breakthroughs that could shape the next decade of innovation and the opportunities that could come from them.&rdquo;
Several key members of James&rsquo; team will also be on hand for this event, which we&rsquo;re calling Tech Turning Point 2026. It&rsquo;s set for next Tuesday March 17 at 2:00 p.m. EDT.
Note well: We won&rsquo;t try to sell you any of our newsletters or trading services during this event. We just want to clue you in to the tech trends that will shape your world in the years ahead. Watch this space for details in the days to come on how you can join in.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> In the meantime, the big market story today is a coordinated global release of oil reserves.
The International Energy Agency says its 32 member nations will release 400 million barrels from its emergency stockpiles &mdash; a record total, more than double a 2022 release after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
If the aim was to calm the oil trade, it&rsquo;s not working: At last check a barrel of West Texas Intermediate is up over $3.50 &mdash; back over $87.
Perhaps that&rsquo;s because traders understand the complex logistics of releasing such oil.
It&rsquo;s not as simple as opening a spigot. The math is ugly: &ldquo;IEA-coordinated releases have never exceeded 2 million barrels a day,&rdquo; says an article by economist Tracy Shuchart. Contrast that with the current amount of oil production that&rsquo;s offline &mdash; about 6.5 million barrels a day. That&rsquo;s not production that&rsquo;s bottled in &mdash; that&rsquo;s production that&rsquo;s shut down.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> As for stocks, it&rsquo;s a red day, but nothing dramatic &mdash; the S&amp;P 500 down less than half a percent to 6,751. The Nasdaq&rsquo;s losses are more modest, the Dow&rsquo;s steeper.
Gold is relatively calm at $5,166 but silver&rsquo;s on another wild ride &mdash; down over $3.50 to $84.66. Bitcoin is holding onto the $70,000 handle and Ethereum is comfortably over $2,000.
Also in the mix is the Labor Department&rsquo;s release of the consumer price index: The official inflation rate clocks in at 2.4% &mdash; unchanged from a month earlier. The number has been stuck in a channel between 2.3&ndash;3% since the summer of 2024.
Of course, that 2.4% figure is for February &mdash; prewar. As such it will likely have little or no impact on what the Federal Reserve does with interest rates at its policy-setting meeting a week from today. The betting in the futures market is that the Fed will hold the benchmark fed funds rate steady at 3.75% &mdash; and the next cut won&rsquo;t come until July at the earliest.
<a id="4"></a>
The war potentially throws another economic indicator into a cocked hat &mdash; small-business sentiment. But for the record, the monthly Optimism Index from the National Federation of Independent Business registers 98.8 for February &mdash; slightly above the index&rsquo;s long-term average.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Market-Moving Tweet
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> There&rsquo;s an old saying about how &ldquo;There are no markets anymore, only manipulations.&rdquo; (As with many sayings, its origins are murky.)
It comes to mind given the action in the oil price yesterday.
At midafternoon, Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted the following on X: &ldquo;The U.S. Navy successfully escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to ensure oil remains flowing to global markets.&rdquo;
A few minutes later, he deleted the post. The White House and the Navy said no escorts were underway, nor were any planned.
The whipsaw action in the oil price was extreme &mdash; a barrel of West Texas Intermediate sinking to $77, then rallying to $84.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/32Ek4u8Oe10ztQJxjQAosf/ff6c0c9bb78a4f90c2d9645280cd73da/FMF-Issue-031126_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" /> <img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5nhcfypFkYAOHtHjWHmash/2924bbd385c83c47ef43f4434cb9b6d1/FMF-Issue-031126_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
For its part, the Energy Department is pinning the blame on a flunky who put an &ldquo;incorrect caption&rdquo; beneath a video clip of Wright. Alrighty then&hellip;
The renowned oil industry analyst Anas Alhajji says political maneuvers like these always backfire. &ldquo;Traders may be fooled once or twice, but that&rsquo;s it,&rdquo; he tweets.
Worse, &ldquo;Drillers will not drill under such manipulation. They want a clear market signal. This will guarantee higher prices for [a] longer period!&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: &ldquo;Lost&rdquo; Reader, the Draft, Civil War
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;You just lost me as a reader,&rdquo; begins today&rsquo;s mailbag. &ldquo;You really don&rsquo;t understand what is happening and how. If this is all you have, you are done.&rdquo;
That&rsquo;s all the email said. Presumably it was in response to something in <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/what-if-iran-wins">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>? Alas we&rsquo;ll never know&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Smoking marijuana isn't the only way to flunk a military physical,&rdquo; writes a retired Air Force officer on the subject of a return to the draft.
&ldquo;Back in 1972 before the draft ended, I was in the Chicago Military Entrance and Examination Center waiting room waiting for a physical. There were also a soda and snack machines there. One potential draftee holding a Coke can told me that if you drink a Coke shortly before your physical, you will show up as diabetic and they will have you return again in a month to test again before disqualifying you.
&ldquo;Sesame seeds also have a reputation for making you test positive for drugs.
&ldquo;Depending on my mood, I can argue for and against a draft.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Seeing civil war in The 5 for two days in a row while the war in Iran is going on has got me itching to throw my 2 cents in,&rdquo; writes one of our regulars.
&ldquo;To discuss the possibility of civil war, to acknowledge its likelihood, requires the ever-so-subtle unsaid concession that ballots don't seem to have the power they are supposed to. It seems to be noticed amidst all the broken promises that lobbyists and others with big wallets get what they want when the voters don't.
&ldquo;From there it is easy enough to conclude that we live in a kleptocracy or an oligarchy and that the American Experiment is a failure and the eternal vigilance the founders named as the price for freedom is simply too high a price for the average citizen to pay.
&ldquo;After that? Who knows?
&ldquo;I think Robert Kiyosaki is probably right when he says three days after there is no food is when all hell breaks loose, but we aren't there yet.&rdquo;
Dave responds: And let&rsquo;s pray we don&rsquo;t get there.
Brings to mind another old saying, often misattributed. We made a meme out of it on Election Day 2020&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1mBnCCEwQeJaNdrtcuhjdZ/05a6be1f664dac55ba7eb88879b587e0/FMF-issue-031126_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />

FMF-Issue-031126(Featured)

No Fertilizer, No Food

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Very Complete, Pretty Much
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Rarely have four words moved markets like this.
About 40 minutes before the stock market closed yesterday, Donald Trump told CBS News: &ldquo;I think the war is very complete, pretty much.
"[Iran has] no navy, no communications, they've got no air force,&rdquo; he added. &ldquo;If you look, they have nothing left. There&rsquo;s nothing left in a military sense.&rdquo;
The market reaction was instantaneous and extreme: The oil price collapsed from over $100 to below $85. The stock market, struggling for traction all day, ended the session with the S&amp;P 500 up more than three-quarters of a percent.
The social media reaction invoked George W. Bush&rsquo;s &ldquo;Mission Accomplished&rdquo; moment from 2003.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/ioSdUvyfvhsHBSdNzlDd4/8db721aa877d70968c3c2601628c18ba/FMF-issue-031026-_1_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
But then, later in the evening&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5HmoRhj0gmmeuPMBLuyonh/8721cbcbd9a80fb9c7d3820d4b9ceeec/FMF-issue-031026-_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
In after-hours electronic trading the oil price leaped 10% in the space of two hours.
So it appears &ldquo;very complete, pretty much&rdquo; was not a statement about the progress of the war &mdash; but a cynical ruse to talk stocks up and oil down, at least for a while.
In that sense, &ldquo;Mission accomplished.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Before we move on, a follow-up about the Strait of Hormuz&hellip;
It&rsquo;s a head-scratcher, the start of the president&rsquo;s statement about &ldquo;if&rdquo; Tehran halts oil flow through the Strait of Hormuz.
As chronicled <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/iran-unthinkable-scenario">in yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>, the strait has been effectively blockaded for days &mdash; except for whoever the Iranian military wants to let through. Chinese oil tankers are getting through in exchange for the Chinese government providing financial help, spare parts and missile components.
Now, according to Iranian state media, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is extending an offer of passage to vessels from other countries&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5VFZyj8VtJZTLpzkmC5qrO/82b595e6033d440a78a0fa184de85534/FMF-issue-031026-_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
So far, no takers &mdash; not that we know of, anyway.
In any event, the war continues. And so we&rsquo;re compelled to return to a question we explored on Friday, this time with the help of our own Jim Rickards&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />What if Iran Wins?
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;The Scenario Washington Won&rsquo;t Discuss &mdash; Iran Winning&rdquo; was the title of a report Jim Rickards issued to his Situation Report readers last week.
We won&rsquo;t touch on all of the points he ran down to make the case that the Iranian regime is more resilient than conventional wisdom has it. But two are worth highlighting&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Westerners &ldquo;have little idea just how big Iran is,&rdquo; says Jim.
&ldquo;It&rsquo;s the 17th-largest country in the world by area out of 195 countries. It also has the 17th-largest population in the world with 86 million people.
&ldquo;Iran is not a giant like India or Brazil, but it is far larger than Americans realize. The terrain is challenging with large mountain ranges and deserts. This is not a country ripe for a land invasion like Iraq or Syria.&rdquo;
We&rsquo;ll supplement Jim&rsquo;s observations with this map, courtesy of the Diligent News site&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4tPe7Zqv5zpcwx3LGpzFVL/41e4b6699fcdc9ac355338718411f4b6/FMF-issue-031026-_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
&ldquo;Iran is far larger than Ukraine,&rdquo; Jim continues, &ldquo;which is still holding out against Russia after four years of war. Iran has what military strategists call strategic depth, which offers the ability to retreat without surrender. Iran isn&rsquo;t going anywhere and it will not easily be subdued.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;The U.S. and Israel are running low on offensive and defensive bombs and missiles,&rdquo; says Jim.
&ldquo;This is the result of the massive bombing attacks on Iran, the need to fire thousands of anti-missiles to shoot down thousands of incoming drones and missiles, the fact that the U.S. has allowed its military industrial capacity to atrophy and the large number of weapons wasted in Ukraine.
&ldquo;U.S. industrial output of 800 cruise missiles per year cannot keep up with Israel and the U.S. launching 100 per week. Ships need to reprovision. Repairs cannot be neglected. Diego Garcia is days away from the battlespace. The U.S. will be badly stretched.&rdquo;
➢ Update: As anticipated in this space on Friday, the Pentagon is moving parts of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system &mdash; THAAD &mdash; from South Korea to the Middle East.
Here&rsquo;s some startling missile math Jim shared yesterday with Strategic Intelligence readers: &ldquo;Iran may have 10,000 drones that cost about $20,000 each. The U.S. is using missiles that cost $4 million each and has a limited supply of them. The U.S. can produce about 1,000 cruise missiles per year but is using more than 100 per week.&rdquo;
Bottom line: &ldquo;In a war of attrition, really a war for survival, victory goes to the last man standing. That may be Iran.&rdquo;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Oil and Stocks: It&rsquo;s Not the &rsquo;70s Anymore
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Even at &ldquo;only&rdquo; $83.19 this morning, oil is as costly now as it was last summer. But is a spike in oil prices bad for the stock market?
Not really, says Paradigm trading pro Enrique Abeyta. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s a table from Bespoke Investment Group showing every time that oil prices have gone up at least 20% in one week since 1985.
&ldquo;It also shows how the S&amp;P 500 performed after each one of these price spikes.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/4UoAcKO7G7dgASS4NNVDCX/7b7696700ab25841c1547a60a44b07aa/FMF-issue-031026-_5_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
We can hear the objection already: But what about the 1970s?
For one thing, modern-day oil futures didn&rsquo;t begin trading until 1983. For another thing, the Persian Gulf region accounts for far less of the world&rsquo;s oil supply now than it did at the time of the 1970s oil shock. (That&rsquo;s the made-in-America fracking revolution of the 2010s at work.)
Back to the table: &ldquo;You can see the performance of the S&amp;P 500 weeks, months and one year after these price spikes,&rdquo; says Enrique.
&ldquo;The first takeaway is that in the following few weeks and months, the performance of the stock market was choppy. One week later, it was down two-thirds of the time. Three months later, it was down 60% of the time.
&ldquo;The downward moves may not be big, but the market clearly struggles to digest oil spikes at first.
&ldquo;Looking out one year, however, the stock market was higher 86% of the time with an almost 30% return &mdash; more than double the stock market&rsquo;s average.&rdquo;
The lone exception &mdash; 2022, which registered a modest 6.5% drop.
Enrique&rsquo;s conclusion: &ldquo;This relationship is clear from the overall data: Higher oil prices correlate with higher stock prices over time.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Meanwhile, the major U.S. indexes are adding to yesterday&rsquo;s late-session gains.
The S&amp;P 500 is up a third of a percent, back above 6,800. The index has been range-bound between 6,721&ndash;6,978 for nearly three months.
Both the Dow and the Nasdaq are registering stronger gains &mdash; about a half percent on the day.
Gold has reclaimed the $5,200 level for the first time in a week. Silver is back within a buck of $90.
Crypto is once again trying to break through its recent ceiling &mdash; Bitcoin now over $71,000 and Ethereum at $2,073.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />Economy Miscellany
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />If the aim of the Trump tariff regime is to throttle China&rsquo;s export machine, it&rsquo;s not working.
The Beijing government reports that Chinese exports totaled $657 billion in the first two months of 2026 &mdash; a 21.8% leap over the same period last year. That&rsquo;s nearly three times the growth expected by Wall Street economists.
Yes, Chinese exports to the United States fell more than 10%. But exports to Europe grew 27.8% and exports to countries belonging to the ASEAN consortium in Asia grew 29.4%.
The numbers put China on pace to exceed its record 2025 exports by year-end 2026.
Reminder: Donald Trump is still scheduled to meet in Beijing with Chinese president Xi Jinping at the end of this month.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />Going by a measure that government statisticians can&rsquo;t fiddle with, the U.S. employment picture is the weakest in nearly 70 years.
Last Friday, we mentioned the punk February job numbers &mdash; with caveats. For one thing, ever since the pandemic, fewer business owners and individuals are responding to Labor Department surveys. Further, the stats have been rigged for decades to make the job picture look better than it really is.
But there&rsquo;s one number the statisticians can&rsquo;t game &mdash; the labor force participation rate. This is the percentage of the civilian population over age 16 that&rsquo;s either working or looking for work.
Here&rsquo;s a very long-term chart of the participation rate &mdash; going back nearly 80 years, a period encompassing 12 recessions. The February 2026 number is 62.0%.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/5z49MX8bZRLrf3PrMKzYtl/056ff031aad5e1407ee208f0e56a3a35/FMF-issue-031026-_6_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Leaving aside the pandemic plunge and recovery, the last time the number was this low was March 1977 &mdash; when women were still entering the workforce en masse, the first Rocky film was the big box-office draw and Barbra Streisand topped the charts with the love theme from A Star Is Born.
Mainstream explanations are wanting: Yes, growing numbers of boomers are aging out of the workforce. The crackdown on immigration might be a factor. Gig-economy workers might not be showing up in the figures.
But is that all? Seems like something else is going on, even if we can&rsquo;t put a finger on it right now.
We&rsquo;re going to keep a closer eye on this number in the monthly jobs report throughout 2026&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Surrealism, Track Records, War Powers
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;Surrealistic!&rdquo; a reader says in response to the start of <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/iran-unthinkable-scenario">yesterday&rsquo;s edition</a>.
&ldquo;Country Joe was, probably, either dead or dying as President Trump was at Dover, solemnly, receiving the remains of those valiant Americans.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;I am not an active trader, thus only subscribe to Mason Sexton's trade recommendations for context,&rdquo; a reader writes after Mason&rsquo;s accurate call about the stock market&rsquo;s recent wobble.
&ldquo;I agree his approach is unique, but you should publish his results. I will bet he has one of the best records out there and he documents it very specifically including stops, timing, etc. This is a forever letter for me; I hope he stays healthy!&rdquo;
Dave responds: He&rsquo;s not going anywhere. Meanwhile, we&rsquo;re working on ways to publicize portfolio performance without giving away valuable information that we want to limit to paying subscribers. Stay tuned&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" />&ldquo;I've been reading your 5 Bullets about the so-called war,&rdquo; says our final correspondent.
&ldquo;When will Congress actually try to stop Trump or declare a real war? I would like to have those bridges, highways and other infrastructure upgraded.&rdquo;
Dave: As mentioned on Friday, war powers resolutions failed narrowly in both the House and Senate last week. For all intents and purposes, Congress gave the White House a blank check.
When it comes to matters of war and peace, Congress is becoming as useless as the Roman Senate during the transition from republic to empire. And so it goes&hellip;

FMF-issue-031026-(Featured)

What if Iran Wins?

FMF-Issue-030926(Featured)

Iran: “Unthinkable Scenario”

<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-1_2x-new.png 2x" alt="1" width="37" />Unconditional Surrender
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> File this one under &ldquo;Life comes at you fast.&rdquo;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/3g1XVt1AhhZKIhnOabZQM1/415caf51c2cb200c4e03fb25ac305a2f/dailyfeed-030626_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Really, though, The Wall Street Journal&rsquo;s coverage of the markets this week begs the question: Whatever gave &ldquo;investors&rdquo; the notion the Iran war would be &ldquo;brief and relatively contained&rdquo;?
At the outset last weekend, we were told it would be over in a matter of days. By Monday, that became four or five weeks. By Wednesday, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said eight weeks.
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/1M7OIs516sANaXtiyYGIsN/04623b9945b2eed41da7ac9d875096c6/FMF-Issue-030626_2_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
Then yesterday: &ldquo;U.S. Central Command,&rdquo; reported Politico, &ldquo;is asking the Pentagon to send more military intelligence officers to its headquarters in Tampa, Florida, to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days but likely through September.&rdquo;
Overnight, the energy minister of Qatar warned the Financial Times that every Persian Gulf energy exporter is only days away from shutting down production &mdash; and the oil price might leap to $150 a barrel.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Then this morning, Donald Trump trotted out &ldquo;unconditional surrender&rdquo; again &mdash; a demand that conceivably stretches the timeline well past September.
&ldquo;There will be no deal with Iran except UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!&rdquo; he said on social media.
And with that, a barrel of West Texas Intermediate has shot up 11.4% to top $90 for the first time since the autumn of 2023. And the stock market is sinking into the red for a second day running.
It wasn&rsquo;t the first time he invoked that term, by the way. He said the same during the &ldquo;12-Day War&rdquo; last summer.
And so we&rsquo;re compelled to briefly return to a theme we visited back then&hellip;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;Unconditional surrenders are so rare they are almost unheard of,&rdquo; wrote Richard Maybury more than two decades ago.
Maybury is one of the graybeards of the financial newsletter biz &mdash; and a veteran of Washington&rsquo;s dirty wars in Central America during the 1960s. The following is gleaned from his 2002 book World War II: The Rest of the Story and How It Affects You Today.
&ldquo;In an unconditional surrender, the losers are required to lay down their arms with no guarantees at all. They must simply put their fate in the hands of the winners, and the winners can do anything they please, including hang them.&rdquo;
President Franklin Roosevelt demanded unconditional surrender of Germany on Jan. 24, 1943.
At the time, the Nazis were on their heels &mdash; only a week away from getting totally curb-stomped by the Soviets at Stalingrad.
But FDR&rsquo;s demand steeled the Germans&rsquo; resolve.
&ldquo;The effect of this brutal formula on the German nation, and above all on the army, was great,&rdquo; German Gen. Heinz Guderian wrote in his 1951 memoir Panzer Leader. &ldquo;The soldiers, at least, were convinced from now on our enemies had decided on the utter destruction of Germany.&rdquo;
On the flip side, unconditional surrender devastated the enthusiasm of the German underground: One of its members, Gen. Franz Halder, lamented he could no longer attract new recruits. As he put it, even Hitler&rsquo;s fiercest opponents understood that &ldquo;the same frightful fate awaited us with or without Hitler&hellip; The only thing to do was hold out until the end.&rdquo;
The war dragged on for two more years &mdash; with more than one million dead per month.
Then again&hellip; the timeline now might be much shorter than anyone expects. Read on&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-2_2x-new.png 2x" alt="2" width="37" />It&rsquo;s All About the Interceptors
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;We have got to get this done in the next couple of weeks or we&rsquo;re going to start getting into some real trouble, because we don&rsquo;t have enough interceptor missiles and we don&rsquo;t have enough offensive missiles to sustain this combat for months.&rdquo;
So says retired Army combat officer Daniel L. Davis, now a senior fellow at the Defense Priorities think tank.
Compared with Washington&rsquo;s ever-changing war aims, &ldquo;The Iranian side, their objective is much more attainable and much less complicated &mdash; which is to just survive,&rdquo; Davis says in an interview with Libertarian Institute cofounder Scott Horton.
&ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t matter how many planes you have, how many ships you have, how many the other side has. What matters is how many [interceptor] missiles or long-range drones can you fire in a sustained manner, and how many does the other side have. Because the one that runs out of interceptor missiles first is the one that&rsquo;s going to be losers.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Even mainstream think tanks understand that the U.S. inventory of interceptor missiles has been depleted by years of Washington&rsquo;s aid to Israel and Ukraine.
&ldquo;The United States either needs to pay the table stakes to build up AMD interceptor capacity or bear the risk of being forced to sit out future conflicts,&rdquo; said a report issued last December by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The report says the 12-Day War alone burned through a quarter of Washington&rsquo;s supply of THAAD anti-ballistic missile interceptors. Other analysts say the report miscounted and the percentage is even higher.
Fast-forward to this week: According to several South Korean media outlets, the Pentagon has begun talking with the South Korean government about taking some of the THAADs currently deployed on the Korean Peninsula&hellip; and moving them to the Middle East.
&ldquo;I struggle to arrive at a logical conclusion for this gross mismanagement,&rdquo; tweets the independent military analyst Will Schryver. &ldquo;It almost seems to be deliberate malfeasance, for reasons I cannot fathom.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &ldquo;It is almost impossible for me to see how Israel and the U.S. win this war,&rdquo; writes John Mearsheimer, the distinguished foreign policy scholar from the University of Chicago.
&ldquo;It seems that victory for this aggressive tag team requires not only regime change in Iran, but replacing the regime with new leaders who are subservient to Israeli and American wishes. If those two things do not happen, Iran will surely keep its nuclear enrichment capability; keep building ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, &amp; long-range drones; and keep supporting Hamas, the Houthis and Hezbollah.
&ldquo;The likelihood of this war producing an Iranian regime that is subservient to Israel and the U.S. is close to zero in my estimation.
&ldquo;For Iran to win, all it has to do is survive and not end up as a pawn of Israel and the U.S. Even if its missile inventory is greatly diminished, its nuclear enrichment capability is crippled and its infrastructure is badly damaged, it matters little if the regime survives or is replaced by a regime that refuses to kowtow to the tag team.&rdquo;
Don&rsquo;t dismiss Mearsheimer&rsquo;s outlook out of hand: He&rsquo;s the guy who opened the eyes of millions when Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4">His 2015 lecture</a> titled &ldquo;Why Is Ukraine the West&rsquo;s Fault?&rdquo; went viral on YouTube in the days that followed. Later, when the mainstream kept telling us Ukraine was destined for victory and Russia for collapse, Measheimer knew better.
Let&rsquo;s turn to the markets today&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-3_2x-new.png 2x" alt="3" width="37" />Jobs, Gold, Bonds
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Aside from the war, there&rsquo;s a punk jobs report on Mr. Market&rsquo;s mind.
This morning the wonks at the Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured a loss of 92,000 jobs for the month of February. No one among Wall Street economists saw that one coming: The most pessimistic guess was a 35,000 job gain.
In addition, the job gains in January and December were revised downard by 69,000.
The official unemployment rate ticked up to 4.4%. It&rsquo;s been hovering between 4&ndash;4.5% since mid-2024.
How believable are the numbers? Well, in one sense they&rsquo;ve been gamed for decades &mdash; as we showed one day last summer. (<a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/trump-lets-blow-this-taco-stand">Click here</a> and scroll down to Bullet No. 3.) But ever since the pandemic years, matters have been made worse by the fact that fewer business owners and individuals are responding to the Bureau of Labor Statistics&rsquo; surveys.
In any event, the numbers aren&rsquo;t moving the needle on the likelihood of interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve: Futures traders still assign a 50-50 probability of one cut by midyear, and not until June.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> And so the S&amp;P 500 approaches the end of the week sitting at year-to-date lows &mdash; down 1.1% as we write to 6,753. The Nasdaq is holding up slightly better, the Dow slightly worse.
Gold has been stuck in a channel ever since a very odd $400 sell-off during a 12-hour span earlier this week: At the moment it&rsquo;s up 1.1% or $57 to $5,137. Silver is again proving to be more volatile &mdash; up 2.5% or two bucks to $84.19.
Crypto&rsquo;s midweek gains don&rsquo;t seem to be sticking &mdash; with Bitcoin at $68,429 and Ethereum back below $2,000.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Gold&rsquo;s activity this week has been curious &mdash; and bonds, curiouser. Recall during times of geopolitical and financial stress, hot money usually floods into bonds &mdash; pushing prices higher and yields lower.
That&rsquo;s not happening now: After sinking below 4% last week for the first time since November, the yield on a 10-year Treasury note has shot up to 4.15% &mdash; smack in the middle of its trading range the last six months.
We&rsquo;ve chronicled this before &mdash; but as far as foreigners are concerned, U.S. Treasuries are increasingly becoming a toxic asset, seeing how the U.S. government froze the Treasuries held by Russia&rsquo;s central bank in 2022. Amid a newly volatile geopolitical environment, the fear might be for a similar shock announcement from Washington.
Consulting with Paradigm chart hound Greg Guenthner, a break above 4.3% will likely send the yield substantially higher. On the other hand, a retreat below 3.95% would signal a meaningful drop.
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-4_2x-new.png 2x" alt="4" width="37" />The Costs of War
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> For the record, here&rsquo;s a rough estimate of the Iran war&rsquo;s cost as lunchtime approaches on the East Coast&hellip;
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/7pFz6tvO9EP3ozo0UyklCM/4120c880ce60507c9eb2402cc42bb910/FMF-Issue-030626_3_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
That&rsquo;s according to the <a href="https://iran-cost-ticker.com/">Iran War Cost Tracker</a>.
We don&rsquo;t know who&rsquo;s behind the website &mdash; a Whois lookup reveals only that it was registered on Monday &mdash; but its methodology is transparent and simple: Veteran journalist Nancy Youssef, working these days for The Atlantic, <a href="https://x.com/nancyayoussef/status/2029260834564604070">cites</a> a congressional source as saying the early Pentagon cost estimate for the war is $1 billion a day.
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> But a billion dollars a day pales in comparison with the cost to constitutional government. &ldquo;The Constitution is a dead letter,&rdquo; asserts the aforementioned Daniel Davis.
Both the House and Senate voted down war-powers resolutions this week aimed at halting the Iran war without congressional authorization.
Near as we can tell, this is a first in American war-fighting.
To be sure, Congress has not issued a declaration of war since World War II. President Harry Truman crossed a Rubicon in 1950 by sending American troops to fight and die in Korea with no such declaration.
Nor has there been a declaration for any war since. But at least Congress would go through the motions by passing &ldquo;authorizations&rdquo; and &ldquo;resolutions&rdquo; to make it look as if the legislative branch was doing its job.
And when Barack Obama carried out his regime-change op in Libya in 2011, the Republican-controlled Congress passed several resolutions opposing what he did. Not that it changed anything, but at least it put the legislative branch on record.
Now a Republican-controlled Congress has effectively told the president: &ldquo;Do what you want, we&rsquo;re checking out of all our responsibilities.&rdquo;
This is brand-new territory.
Perhaps realizing what they&rsquo;re doing, some Republican congressmembers are bending over backward to avoid calling the present situation a war. &ldquo;We&rsquo;re not at war right now,&rdquo; says House Speaker Mike Johnson. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s not a war,&rdquo; says Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida).
<img class="aligncenter" src="https://images.ctfassets.net/vha3zb1lo47k/6brtIdh7GITEwx6CSF7uT3/7c8d483f2986dd4cc81139095072f564/FMF-Issue-030626_4_.png" alt="pub" width="540px" />
We&rsquo;ll give the last word for now to Edward Feser, a philosophy professor at Pasadena City College in California: &ldquo;&lsquo;Operation Epic Fury is not a war&rsquo; is the new &lsquo;Trans women are women&rsquo;.&rdquo;
Love how Feser&rsquo;s critique scrambles the culture-war divide. Speaking of which&hellip;
<img src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5-new.png" srcset="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/bullet-5_2x-new.png 2x" alt="5" width="37" />Mailbag: Civil War
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> Let&rsquo;s turn from overseas war to civil war: We got a handful of reactions to <a href="https://paradigmpressroom.com/post/civil-war-now-with-drones">yesterday&rsquo;s edition&hellip;</a>
&ldquo;Your article overlooked one important aspect of a potential American civil war: the ideological lines are not identified by states or regions.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The battle would be urban versus rural, not state versus state, eliminating any possibility of a geographic resolution.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Socialist Democrats occupy the major cities, which dominate states like Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Virginia and even New York, putting them into Democrat territory. Conservatives (both pro-Trump and anti-Trump) occupy the rural areas making up 90%-plus of the nations&rsquo; counties, dominating what exists of a &lsquo;well regulated militia&rsquo; (the original definition, not the National Guard). This makes such a war unlike any of the examples you cited, or any war in history.
&ldquo;The only hope of a peaceful resolution (before or after mass casualties) is a consensus of tolerance to allow opposing political opinions in a desire for peace, decrying the personal hate spewed by the media and amplified by social media since Trump first won the Republican nomination in 2016.&rdquo;
<img class="intrinsic" style="float: left; display: block;" src="https://media.paradigmpressgroup.com/fmf-assets/Paradigm_Logomark_left.png" align="left" /> &rdquo;One major flaw in your American blue/red map is your apparent failure to reflect what many (the majority?) believe.
&ldquo;If and when actual investigations discover the levels of voter fraud, it seems likely that a lot of blue will disappear in favor of red, or at least in favor of a considerable amount of purple. This would seem to suggest that any &lsquo;civil war&rsquo; will be much &lsquo;muddier&rsquo; than the article portrays.
&ldquo;My prayer is of course that it won't come to that. One factor that appears to never be considered in your articles is what I will refer to as &lsquo;spiritual implications &amp; effects.&rsquo; Speaking as a pastor chaplain, I believe that in reality, this factor carries much greater influence and weight than many think.
&ldquo;Presuming, as i do, that there is a God who has ultimate oversight on everything, that Influence can decimate all our human prognostications.&rdquo;
Dave: The map is from the 2024 election. Who asserted fraud in the 2024 election?
Anyway I tried to go out of my way to say that state lines as shown on the map settle nothing.
Living in one of the seven &ldquo;swing states&rdquo; from the 2024 election, I&rsquo;m keenly aware of that fact. And I share both of these readers&rsquo; fervent hope that the worst-case scenarios do not materialize.