Free Republic

President Donald Trump says he believes the 2026 midterm elections will center on “pricing” as Republicans head into a critical period with control of Congress on the line. Trump’s comments follow a string of favorable economic reports over the last two weeks showing inflation is cooling and the economy is hotter than expected. The White House is keen to tout the latest data as it confronts cost-of-living concerns that have underpinned a string of Democratic overperformances across the country. Still, polls show Americans are struggling. Nearly half of respondents said they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation...

2025 was an extraordinary year for precious metals. Gold, silver, and platinum each outperformed other asset classes, including equities, bitcoin (2024’s best performer), and even indexes tracking artificial intelligence (AI)—one of 2025’s most popular investment themes.Silver and platinum rose by approximately 170 percent in 2025, while gold returned a highly respectable 73 percent.Among AI stocks, only Palantir outperformed gold.Why such stellar performance from assets once derided by governments as “barbarous relics” and shunned by investors as outdated?The reason I wrote at the start of last year that we should “expect gold to shine in 2025” was because global conditions had...

SLOP, PARASOCIAL and rage bait were contenders for word of the year in 2025. In 2026 an early favourite for that title, at least among pollsters and election strategists, is “affordability”, often paired with the word “crisis”. Having at last found a slogan that seems to work against the spell of Trumpism, Democrats will talk of little else between now and the midterms in November. In Europe, which is better at reposting American memes than coming up with fresh ones, there is talk of a cost-of-living crisis. A transatlantic consensus is forming that prices are out of whack. But are...

NOTE: This post is very long, and the videos included are even longer. If you choose to watch only one, I would suggest the third one that specifically covers the Trump class. A lot of people instantly hated the new Trump-class Battleship because it has the name "Trump" attached to it, and especially hated it because Trump wants to have a hand in the design for "aesthetic" reasons. After all, if Trump likes something, it must be a bad idea. But of course, that's a terrible reason to have an opinion about whether a weapons system, which would likely be...

President Trump championed his import tariffs Saturday as an economic game changer — while predicting the upcoming midterm elections will hinge on “pricing.” The tariffs have brought in more than $200 billion this year, according to the Customs and Border Protection agency, but face the potential of being struck down by the Supreme Court. “Tariffs are creating GREAT WEALTH, and unprecedented National Security for the USA. Trade deficit has been cut by 60%, totally unheard of. 4.3% GDP, and going way up. No inflation!!! We are respected as a Country again,” Trump wrote Saturday morning on Truth Social. Trump has...

China’s relentless silver buying at record prices, a record SHFE spread, and 2026 export controls confirm silver has become the decisive industrial, economic, tech, and military weapon Physical silver buying in China is continuing at full speed even as silver marks fresh all‑time highs, and that persistence is the tell. What is unfolding is not a normal commodity cycle; it is a quiet arms race for the metal that powers the modern world.​ Silver buying doesn’t care about price. China’s silver demand has only intensified as prices have exploded, with Shanghai spot and near‑dated SHFE futures trading at persistent premiums...

The price of silver is about $78.65 as of Friday—a new high—according to the New York Commodity Exchange.Silver’s price surge has outpaced gold, though the more expensive metal’s price rose just over 1.2% to hit a high of $4,562.70 on Friday.

Geopolitics, diversification, and Fed easing contribute to the U.S. dollar’s downward pressures.While the so-called Santa Claus rally delivered year-end gains for stocks and precious metals, the U.S. dollar received a lump of coal to finish a not particularly strong 2025. The U.S. dollar index, a measure of the greenback against a weighted basket of currencies, is on track for its largest annual decline since 2003. This year, the index has dropped 10 percent, with nearly all of the damage occurring in the first half of 2025, when it tanked almost 11 percent. The alternative trade-weighted dollar index—a measure created by...

Banks and traders are expanding their precious metals desks and logistics capabilities as they race to capitalise on gold's historic rally this year, which has suddenly made the sleepy world of bullion trading and vaulting one of the most profitable areas in finance. The blistering rally in gold and silver prices in 2025 has had another burst of energy in recent days, powered by simmering geopolitical tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, as well as bets of US interest rate cuts. Both precious metals hit record-high prices Wednesday. The price of gold hit $4,500 a troy ounce for the first...

President Donald Trump announced a new fleet of ships Monday, known as the "Golden Fleet," as he revealed he approved plans for two new "very large battleships." "As you know, we're desperately in need of ships. Our ships are some of them have gotten old and tired and obsolete," Trump said, flanked by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, War Secretary Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan. Trump said the new ships would be "100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built," in an address from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. Renderings behind the president showed the...

President Donald J. Trump took office on a promise to defeat inflation and bring down costs — and 11 months later, he has made substantial progress in reversing the inflation and cost-of-living disaster he inherited. Inflation has been cut by more than half, gas prices have fallen sharply, real wages are growing again, and key household expenses are finally heading in the right direction.President Trump tamed Biden’s inflation crisis — and is working to bring it down further.Democrats caused it. Under Biden, inflation averaged nearly 5% and hit 9.1% amid the worst inflation crisis in decades — fueled by the...

“Just as President Trump told Americans last night: inflation continues to fall, wages continue to rise, and America is trending towards a historic economic boom. Today’s report shows that inflation came in far lower than market expectations — a stark comparison to the record-high 9% inflation crisis caused by Joe Biden. Core inflation is at a new multi-year low, as prices for groceries, medicine, gas, airfare, car rentals, and hotels keep falling. Americans can expect this trend of lower prices and bigger paychecks to continue into the New Year!”— White House Press Secretary Karoline LeavittThe latest inflation data shattered economists’...

What can Donald Trump do to stop morphing into Joe Biden? The two presidents could hardly be more different in most ways—but in the one that counts most with voters, Trump is in danger of resembling his predecessor. Americans rejected Biden and the Democrats last year because they were incensed at the lousy state of the economy. Right now, they’re not much happier with Trump’s economy. Inflation was the No. 1 concern on voters’ minds last year, and it’s still a top concern today. Trump’s team say they plan to tout “affordability” as a theme Republicans can win on in...

Apparently blatant editorializing in place of straight news now seems to be becoming increasingly the rule not the exception at the Associated Press.The latest example of AP breaking its own rules against opinionating in news stories is so blatantly absurd as to be laughable. The AP on Thursday actually took the November inflation rate of 2.7% which was below the expected 3.1% and somehow turned that good news into a negative. Check the headline on AP reporters Paul Wiseman's and Anne D'Innocenzio's editorial poorly disguised as an article, "US says price increases eased last month but data may be distorted...

President Donald Trump made a series of false claims during his prime-time address from the White House on Wednesday night, most of which have been debunked before. Here is a fact check of some of his assertions. Inflation and the economy Inflation under Trump: Near the end of the speech, Trump falsely claimed, “Inflation is stopped.” Inflation hasn’t stopped; the most recent available year-over-year inflation rate at the time he spoke on Wednesday, 3.0% in September, was the same as the rate when Trump returned to office in January – in fact, if you go to multiple decimal places,...

Key Points The consumer price index rose at a 2.7% annualized rate last month, a delayed report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected CPI to have risen 3.1%. Core CPI, which strips out volatile food and energy prices, was also cooler than anticipated, increasing 2.6% over 12 months.

Donald Trump is backing a GOP proposal depositing $1,500 checks into the health care accounts of millions of Americans. The legislation, which is being led by Republican Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, gives qualifying Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollees a $1,000 deposit for those aged 18 to 49, as well as recipients aged 50 to 64 for $1,500. While speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Tuesday, the president

With all the complaining about inflation - and who you vote for depending on the price of a pound of hamburger - who is is the real culprit in inflation, especially food? Who is that has the "twirling mustache" in this situation? Tariffs? 80-90% of our food is domestically sourced-imports only 20%. Energy? Fuel prices have been coming down in the past year in most of the country-except for those over-taxed/regulated blue states. Labor? Agriculture is due for major automation - many crops are already machine harvested-more needs to. And, sorry Jazzie Crackpot,cotton has been picked by machine since the...

The Trump administration on Monday unveiled a new initiative dubbed the “U.S. Tech Force,” comprising about 1,000 engineers and other specialists who will work on artificial intelligence infrastructure and other technology projects throughout the federal government. Participants will commit to a two-year employment program working with teams that report directly to agency leaders in “collaboration with leading technology companies,” according to an official government website. Those “private sector partners” include Amazon Web Services , Apple , Google Public Sector, Dell Technologies , Microsoft , Nvidia , OpenAI, Oracle , Palantir , Salesforce and numerous others, the website says. The Tech...

Democrats just flipped the Miami mayorship from 🟥🔜🟦. The last time democrats won Miami was 1998. Republicans are completely squandering all of the work we did to win the 2024 elections. It’s especially frustrating as democrats are raising taxes in New Jersey & Pennsylvania.