The Fourth of July Cookout Is America's Inflation Receipt
Fourth of July cookout average costs hit $73.82 for 10 as gas stays near $3.85 and millions still travel. But real costs for most people will be over $500 for 10.
News
The New Fed Chair Has a Communications Policy: Good Luck
Kevin Warsh held rates steady, but that was not the interesting part. The interesting part is that the Fed may be getting less talkative just as inflation, growth, and markets are getting harder to read.
The Iran Deal Has a Mountain-Sized Footnote
Trump says the Iran memorandum blocks a nuclear weapon. The leaked terms suggest a stranger story: oil relief now, nuclear details later, and a very large unanswered question under Pickaxe Mountain.
The Griftoboros Is Complete as SpaceX IPO Pops 24% Out of the Gate
SpaceX opened above its record IPO price and quickly pushed past a $2 trillion valuation. The bigger story is how Musk turned rockets, Starlink, xAI, X, Grok and retail hype into one giant public-market machine.
The Flesh-Eating Screwworm Is Back, and the “Wasteful” Fly Program Suddenly Looks Pretty Smart
New World screwworm is back in Texas and New Mexico after decades of U.S. eradication. The flesh-eating parasite is exposing what happens when boring prevention programs get treated like waste.
Millions Lost Food Aid and Washington Is Calling It a Strong Economy
SNAP enrollment has fallen by more than 3.5 million people since last summer’s budget law. The official spin is fraud prevention and a better economy. The uglier explanation is paperwork.
Half the S&P 500 Is Trading Above 10x Sales. Dot-Com Investors Have Seen This Movie.
A new valuation chart shows 51% of the S&P 500’s market cap is in stocks trading above 10 times sales. That was supposed to be the warning label, not the business model.
South Korea’s Market Halt Is a Warning Shot for the AI Trade
The KOSPI plunged hard enough to trigger a trading halt, as Samsung, SK Hynix and the global chip trade got hit by the same problem: the AI story is still huge, but the stocks were priced like nothing could go wrong.
The AI Bubble Got Hit Once and Trump Is Already Floating Taxpayer Bailouts
After a brutal tech selloff, Trump floated the idea of the American public taking stakes in top AI companies. That is not officially a bailout yet. But the timing is doing a lot of screaming.
Everything That Could Go Wrong for Markets Went Wrong Today
Stocks, crypto, metals and the AI trade all cracked in the same session, after a hot jobs report forced investors to reconsider the one thing holding this market together: easy money coming back soon.
The Griftoboros: Elon’s Self-Dealing Empire Is Eating Itself
Elon Musk’s Tesla, SpaceX, xAI, and X merger looks less like genius and more like the ultimate can-kick, a circular hype machine where every failed “next year” promise gets rolled into a bigger grift.
Financing the Holiday on Fumes: War, Inflation, and the $4.50 Memorial Day Pain Tax
Memorial Day travel is hitting record levels while gas prices surge above $4.50, flights strain under holiday demand, and storms threaten major routes. The summer travel boom is not proof Americans feel rich. It is proof people are tired of having nothing left.