5 minutes ago, NanLaew said:

If they're from the same clique of blinkered and gormless MAGA idiots, probably not.

So every not far left is an idiot?

11 hours ago, Yagoda said:

Got it. 13% "healthy gain" is bad LOL.

The yearly average is 10%

11 hours ago, CallumWK said:

As always you clearly don't get it. Lowest in 20 years is indeed bad

Looks like fake news. Only an idiot would think 13% is bad.

Based on data as of January 2026, the S&P 500's annual total returns (including reinvested dividends) for the most recent years are:

• 2026: 1.44% (YTD as of January 16, 2026)

• 2025: 17.88%

• 2024: 25.02%

• 2023: 26.29%

• 2022: -18.11%

• 2021: 28.71%

• 2020: 18.40%

• 2019: 31.49%

• 2018: -4.38%

• 2017: 21.83%

24 minutes ago, Harrisfan said:

Silver is currently in a speculative bubble, according to multiple financial analysts and market observers, driven by a mix of narrative-driven demand, institutional positioning, and technical chart patterns.

• Market Surge: Silver prices have surged over 30% in just three weeks (January 2026), reaching $93.25–$94.75 per ounce, with some reports noting it briefly hit new all-time highs. This follows a fourfold increase over the past few years, fueling concerns of overvaluation.

• Bubble Indicators: The rally is characterized by parabolic gains, extreme overbought conditions (reaching levels not seen since the 1980s bubble), and speculative narratives centered on dollar debasement, AI-driven industrial demand, and silver as a "high-beta gold" hedge.

• Key Concerns:

  • Narrative Over Fundamentals: While silver has industrial uses (solar, EVs, data centers), analysts argue that current prices far exceed intrinsic value and are not justified by supply-demand fundamentals.

  • Micro-Bubble Pattern: The surge aligns with a broader trend of "micro-bubbles" since 2020 — similar to NFTs, meme stocks, and SPACs — where speculative fervor drives prices beyond rational valuation.

  • Risk of a Sharp Correction: Historical precedent (e.g., the 1980s Hunt brothers bubble) shows that such rallies can end abruptly, with silver losing over 75% of its value in a short period.

.

Fact 1. Silver demand far outstrips supply, and has done so for the past 5 years.

Fact 2, Silver is only about 30% recycled. The rest vanishes, or is not recoverable for decades. Polishing silverware alone loses 100,000 ounces a year.

Fact 3. Silver is essential for everything - smartphones, tv's, military hardware, solar panels, AI. If it's electronic, it's got silver in it.

Fact 4. Silver is not a primary mining target. Copper, zinc and lead mines produce it as a by-product. Gold is mined for its own sake.

Fact 5. Silver has been declared a critical mineral by the USA. China has placed export controls on it.

Fact 6. Demand for silver in China is so high jewellery manufacturers are converting their production lines to cast bars.

Fact 7. The COMEX has been suppressing silver prices for years, with 300 paper contracts for every physical silver contract. The disconnect is total now.

Fact 8. Silver is 19 times more abundant in the earth's crust than gold, currently 45 times cheaper than gold.

The analysts you quote are pushing the narrative of the banks. They want people to sell, to enable them to cover their short positions,

Smart people own physical silver, and shares in silver producers. Dumb people trust fiat currency.

How much silver do you own?

Trump is destroying the US economy one step at a time. It could be intentional. It could be diabolical. Nobody knows. He could simply be unhinged or following the dictates of a very sinister cabal.

One thing is certain. He is accomplishing very little, he will NOT bring manufacturing back to America, which is stupid over priced (I am here now and inflation is raging at 20% or higher right now), he is causing alot of pain, he is losing support, destroying businesses, and consumer confidence, he does not have a coherent plan, and he is a destructive nimwit.

I don’t think he has a coherent value structure as most of us understand it. I think we’re seeing a president who’s operating without anything any of us would recognize as a conscience. Truly.

It is about showing what he can get away with. It’s about showing his enemies that what they support, he can tear down. It is all about displays of brute strength. He gets off on that, and in that sense, it seems not so much an autocracy but a flexocracy. Let me show you how I can flex my bicep as I use it to power my fist coming into your face.

It’s not about any coherent values. It’s not about any North Star. It’s about showing that you can turn the boat 180 degrees around and that you can do whatever you want and you can bring the people who opposed you to their knees.

Trump’s idea of power. If I can destroy, if I can defile and march on relatively unscathed and unpunished, that makes me powerful. Other people can’t get away with it, but that’s how dominant and superior I am.

Trump would not be where he is without the deep state or a similarly sinister organization or group of very powerful people who put him in that place, and are allowing him to conduct these extremely destructive economic policies. As reckless and as poorly thought out as all this seems, I think it's actually deliberate economic sabotage.

Those of us who worked on Wall Street know there is absolutely no need for any sort of regulation. Let us do what we want, because we add an incredible amount of value...to our own accounts.

As they say, "to err is human; to forgive is the job of the Taxpayer."

Think of the value we added with those glorious Synthetic CDO Squareds with a CDS Kicker back before that little ripple in 2008. Those products bought summer homes in the Hamptons, winter places in Telluride, Aspen, Jackson Hole.....and much of Montana, and refurbished many the interiors of Gulfstreams and Falcons. And they didn't just put Lambos and Ferraris in the garage....it set the stage for Paganis and Bugattis and bespoke Koenigseggs. Oh, and let's not forget financial deregulation kept many a paramour in Graff and Harry Winston.

Wall Street will do it again. They can't help themselves. No matter what they do, they know they always have a free put option, courtesy of the masses.

And it's not just banks that benefit from deregulation. Flexible GAAP is also a major plus. The hyperscalers are now lengthening the depreciation schedule of all those chips. Sure, chips stuffed to the gills with circuits might not last more than 2 years, but it's a blessing to all that there's no real need to depreciate them just over their useful life....and certainly not over the time frame of a new Nvidia introduction. Nvidia comes out with a new generation maybe twice a year, but hyperscalers can run chips---at least per the depreciation schedule---a decade or more. Look what that does for reported earnings, and isn't that most important.

Hyperscalers and the AI firms that are the future of our collective future now know, just as banks in 2008, that too big to fail is Darwinian Socialism. What use are taxpayers if not to help the elite stay elite, and the Donor Class filling campaign coffers. Does anybody think Sen Tuberville understands chips or CDSs? That little Mikey Johnson has time to study data centers when he's busy running his Pray Away the Gay Foundation?

Everything works until it blows up, and then the taxpayer steps up and makes sure the deserving still get their bonuses. And the phrase we'll all use is "Nobody could have seen this coming".

1 hour ago, Harrisfan said:

Based on data as of January 2026, the S&P 500's annual total returns (including reinvested dividends) for the most recent years are:

• 2026: 1.44% (YTD as of January 16, 2026)

• 2025: 17.88%

• 2024: 25.02%

• 2023: 26.29%

• 2022: -18.11%

• 2021: 28.71%

• 2020: 18.40%

• 2019: 31.49%

• 2018: -4.38%

• 2017: 21.83%

Thank you Joe Biden!

And Barack Obama, after cleaning up that little 2008 hiccup.

1 hour ago, Harrisfan said:

So every not far left is an idiot?

You certainly give a lot of credence to that theory with your posting record!

times more abundant in the earth's crust than gold, currently

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

Smart people own physical silver, and shares in silver producers. Dumb people trust fiat currency.

How much silver do you own?

Funny but for the last 60 years I never had a problem buying a newspaper

a pint of milk or bread using ' fiat currency "!

12 minutes ago, Jim Blue said:

times more abundant in the earth's crust than gold, currently

Funny but for the last 60 years I never had a problem buying a newspaper

a pint of milk or bread using ' fiat currency "!

Try looking at the history of currency in Argentina, Venezuala, Zimbabwe, the Weimar Republic... the list goes on and on.

In 1950, 1 ounce of gold bought 150 gallons of gasoline. Today, that same ounce will buy nearly 1800 gallons.

You won't have a problem buying milk or bread, small ticket items. However, as the currency is debased, people will have more problems paying their rent.

23 out of every 10,000 people in the US are homeless. That statistic isn't coming down. And if you believe the job numbers coming out of a politicized bureau, there's a bridge in Sydney Harbor I'd like to sell you.

America is a dumbbell economy. The ultra-rich at one end, the poor at the other. The middle class has been hollowed out ever since your politicians let jobs go overseas in the 1960's and 1970's, and there's no going back.

Trickle-down economics does not work. Intelligent socialism does, but Americans are so rabid about the mere word it is beyond their radius of consideration.

2 hours ago, Wingate said:

Those of us who worked on Wall Street know there is absolutely no need for any sort of regulation. Let us do what we want, because we add an incredible amount of value...to our own accounts.

As they say, "to err is human; to forgive is the job of the Taxpayer."

Think of the value we added with those glorious Synthetic CDO Squareds with a CDS Kicker back before that little ripple in 2008. Those products bought summer homes in the Hamptons, winter places in Telluride, Aspen, Jackson Hole.....and much of Montana, and refurbished many the interiors of Gulfstreams and Falcons. And they didn't just put Lambos and Ferraris in the garage....it set the stage for Paganis and Bugattis and bespoke Koenigseggs. Oh, and let's not forget financial deregulation kept many a paramour in Graff and Harry Winston.

Wall Street will do it again. They can't help themselves. No matter what they do, they know they always have a free put option, courtesy of the masses.

And it's not just banks that benefit from deregulation. Flexible GAAP is also a major plus. The hyperscalers are now lengthening the depreciation schedule of all those chips. Sure, chips stuffed to the gills with circuits might not last more than 2 years, but it's a blessing to all that there's no real need to depreciate them just over their useful life....and certainly not over the time frame of a new Nvidia introduction. Nvidia comes out with a new generation maybe twice a year, but hyperscalers can run chips---at least per the depreciation schedule---a decade or more. Look what that does for reported earnings, and isn't that most important.

Hyperscalers and the AI firms that are the future of our collective future now know, just as banks in 2008, that too big to fail is Darwinian Socialism. What use are taxpayers if not to help the elite stay elite, and the Donor Class filling campaign coffers. Does anybody think Sen Tuberville understands chips or CDSs? That little Mikey Johnson has time to study data centers when he's busy running his Pray Away the Gay Foundation?

Everything works until it blows up, and then the taxpayer steps up and makes sure the deserving still get their bonuses. And the phrase we'll all use is "Nobody could have seen this coming".

So, you were CIA and Wall Street, I'm really impressed.

5 hours ago, NanLaew said:

When the crash comes, you can always blame it on Biden, or Obama, or both

Based on the record of predictions by the anti Trump/America crowd here, it should be "if" instead of when.

1 hour ago, Yellowtail said:

So, you were CIA and Wall Street, I'm really impressed.

Bet ya he was a high school/college athlete too

+

17 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

So, all of the sudden, the left is against digital assets.

I think banks are overregulated.

The left is all for guaranteeing $200K student loans that qualify graduates to work at Starbucks because it props up the universities, but is against banks refusing loans to people that are bad risks.

"but is against banks refusing loans to people that are bad risks."

If anyone has got it backwards on this issue, it's you. The whole point of tighter regulation on banks was to kill the incentives for making high risk loans with depositors' money.

"Yes, during the 2008 financial crisis, many financial institutions used depositor funds and other, more volatile, short-term funding sources to finance high-risk lending and purchase risky mortgage-backed securities. While traditional commercial banks are usually associated with safe lending, the expansion of the "originate-to-distribute" model—combined with the deregulation of banking activities—meant that deposits were heavily exposed to the collapsing housing market."

Thanks for the cliched comment about student loans. Can you share with us a breakdown about what percentage of graduate students with 200K in loans end up doing menial labor? I won't hold my breath waiting for you to provide data.

45 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

+

"but is against banks refusing loans to people that are bad risks."

If anyone has got it backwards on this issue, it's you. The whole point of tighter regulation on banks was to kill the incentives for making high risk loans with depositors' money.

"Yes, during the 2008 financial crisis, many financial institutions used depositor funds and other, more volatile, short-term funding sources to finance high-risk lending and purchase risky mortgage-backed securities. While traditional commercial banks are usually associated with safe lending, the expansion of the "originate-to-distribute" model—combined with the deregulation of banking activities—meant that deposits were heavily exposed to the collapsing housing market."

Thanks for the cliched comment about student loans. Can you share with us a breakdown about what percentage of graduate students with 200K in loans end up doing menial labor? I won't hold my breath waiting for you to provide data.

If they are making so much money, why are they not paying back their loans?

That you look down at baristas as "menial" is telling.

Just now, Yellowtail said:

If they are making so much money, why are they not paying back their loans?

That you look down at baristas as "menial" is telling.

Who's "they" and what percentage of them are there that are doing work that doesn't require a college degree?

2 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

Who's "they"

The people not paying back their student loand.

2 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

and what percentage of them are there that are doing work that doesn't require a college degree?

I don't know, but apparently the left says we have a student loan crisis.

Wasn't AOC using her degree in Economics and International Relations as a bartender prior to being elected?

1 minute ago, Yellowtail said:

The people not paying back their student loand.

I don't know, but apparently the left says we have a student loan crisis.

Wasn't AOC using her degree in Economics and International Relations as a bartender prior to being elected?

So you don't know. Thanks at least for answering the crucial question.

2 hours ago, Alan Zweibel said:

So you don't know. Thanks at least for answering the crucial question.

I said nothing about jobs graduate students were working, you brought it up, why don't you tell me?

34 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

I said nothing about jobs graduate students were working, you brought it up, why don't you tell me?

That's true. What you did say was this:

"The left is all for guaranteeing $200K student loans that qualify graduates to work at Starbucks because it props up the universities, but is against banks refusing loans to people that are bad risks."

Why do you think that distinction is significant?

1 minute ago, Alan Zweibel said:

That's true. What you did say was this:

"The left is all for guaranteeing $200K student loans that qualify graduates to work at Starbucks because it props up the universities, but is against banks refusing loans to people that are bad risks."

Why do you think that distinction is significant?

What distinction?

55% of the US workforce have a college degree. What percentage of jobs do you think require a college degree?

When I worked at a manufacturing facility in 1976, no one had a college degree.

2 hours ago, Yellowtail said:

What distinction?

55% of the US workforce have a college degree. What percentage of jobs do you think require a college degree?

When I worked at a manufacturing facility in 1976, no one had a college degree.

The point you raised. That you cited college graduates not graduate students.

Why is that distinction significant?

As for workers in manufacturing. I don't see how that's relevant given that only 8% of American workers labor in manufacturing.

12 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Fact 1. Silver demand far outstrips supply, and has done so for the past 5 years.

Fact 2, Silver is only about 30% recycled. The rest vanishes, or is not recoverable for decades. Polishing silverware alone loses 100,000 ounces a year.

Fact 3. Silver is essential for everything - smartphones, tv's, military hardware, solar panels, AI. If it's electronic, it's got silver in it.

Fact 4. Silver is not a primary mining target. Copper, zinc and lead mines produce it as a by-product. Gold is mined for its own sake.

Fact 5. Silver has been declared a critical mineral by the USA. China has placed export controls on it.

Fact 6. Demand for silver in China is so high jewellery manufacturers are converting their production lines to cast bars.

Fact 7. The COMEX has been suppressing silver prices for years, with 300 paper contracts for every physical silver contract. The disconnect is total now.

Fact 8. Silver is 19 times more abundant in the earth's crust than gold, currently 45 times cheaper than gold.

The analysts you quote are pushing the narrative of the banks. They want people to sell, to enable them to cover their short positions,

Smart people own physical silver, and shares in silver producers. Dumb people trust fiat currency.

How much silver do you own?

I think you are full of it.

10 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

The point you raised. That you cited college graduates not graduate students.

Why is that distinction significant?

So why did you bring up graduate students?

10 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

As for workers in manufacturing. I don't see how that's relevant given that only 8% of American workers labor in manufacturing.

Now add in hospitality, food & food service, fire, police, civil service, entertainment, and any number of other industries.

12 hours ago, Lacessit said:

Fact 1. Silver demand far outstrips supply, and has done so for the past 5 years.

Fact 2, Silver is only about 30% recycled. The rest vanishes, or is not recoverable for decades. Polishing silverware alone loses 100,000 ounces a year.

Fact 3. Silver is essential for everything - smartphones, tv's, military hardware, solar panels, AI. If it's electronic, it's got silver in it.

Fact 4. Silver is not a primary mining target. Copper, zinc and lead mines produce it as a by-product. Gold is mined for its own sake.

Fact 5. Silver has been declared a critical mineral by the USA. China has placed export controls on it.

Fact 6. Demand for silver in China is so high jewellery manufacturers are converting their production lines to cast bars.

Fact 7. The COMEX has been suppressing silver prices for years, with 300 paper contracts for every physical silver contract. The disconnect is total now.

Fact 8. Silver is 19 times more abundant in the earth's crust than gold, currently 45 times cheaper than gold.

The analysts you quote are pushing the narrative of the banks. They want people to sell, to enable them to cover their short positions,

Smart people own physical silver, and shares in silver producers. Dumb people trust fiat currency.

How much silver do you own?

When clowns on the net tip silver time to sell! It was a buy 12 months ago. Topping out now.

11 hours ago, Wingate said:

Thank you Joe Biden!

And Barack Obama, after cleaning up that little 2008 hiccup.

Trump had the best year in 2019

6 minutes ago, Yellowtail said:

So why did you bring up graduate students?

Now add in hospitality, food & food service, fire, police, civil service, entertainment, and any number of other industries.

As I noted, I did it in error. But why did you think it was significant?

So you're claiming the college degrees are universally required in all these fields? If not, you should come up with some actual data that shows what percentage of positions in each of these fields is stipulated for holders of some sort of decollege degree. And the total numbers. As it stands, all your offering is vagueness.

Silver futures down 3% lol

Bubble is bursting

4 minutes ago, Alan Zweibel said:

As I noted, I did it in error. But why did you think it was significant?

So you're claiming the college degrees are universally required in all these fields? If not, you should come up with some actual data that shows what percentage of positions in each of these fields is stipulated for holders of some sort of decollege degree. And the total numbers. As it stands, all your offering is vagueness.

No, what I'm saying is that the majority of jobs in those fields should not require college degrees.