Free Republic

Bill Gates has put his bets on Bud Light's comeback after the tech mogul bought 1.7million worth of shares from the disgraced brand's parent company. The Microsoft founder, 67, acquired the Bud Light shares via his Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust during the second quarter of this year. The shares hold a market value of approximately $95 million, reports TipRanks. His investment comes as Anheuser-Busch Companies are still reeling from the effects of their partnership with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney on April 1. The videos and images posted by her caused nationwide boycotts of the beer. This is not...

One month ago, when everyone suspected that the PBOC's dramatic, 57% jump in gold holdings after a 6 year silence, to a "record" 1658 tons would be a "one-and-done" event, meant to facilitate China's admission into the SDR, we disagreed. This is what we said: ... now that the seal has been finally broken after so many years, and since today's update indicates that Chinese gold numbers are clearly goal-seeked with a specific policy purpose - to boost confidence - we await for the PBOC to start leaking incremental gold holding data every month (and especially in months when...

NEW YORK - U.S. gross domestic product increased by 5.7% in the first quarter of 2002, the largest rise in almost two years, and overall corporate profits and employment are at all-time highs. On the other hand, it looks like L. Dennis Kozlowski cheated on his sales tax. Fearing Kozlowski and accounting woes from all over, the stock markets are down, down, down. To be sure, not all the economic news is good. The rate of unemployment, according to figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning, dropped slightly, to 5.8%, and real income levels have been fairly...