Enslave
Profiteer
Rule
Don’t go there!
Perhaps ironically, one of the most famous 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse paintings is by a Russian:
- Pestilence (on a White Horse -> COVID !?)
- War (on a Red Horse -> PUTIN !?)
- Famine (on a Black Horse -> HYPERINFLATION !?)
- Death (on a Pale Horse -> TOO LATE !?)
- Meduza
- DW
- Ahead
On Monday evening, police in Russia’s Vologda region arrested a man for setting fire to a local grocery store after vendors refused to sell him alcohol in compliance with a new regional ordinance that limits liquor sales to a two-hour window between noon and 2 p.m.
Following Tuesday’s news of a U.S.-Ukrainian agreement on a ceasefire framework, French President Emmanuel Macron said that he and other European leaders believe security guarantees for Ukraine “should not be separate from NATO and its capabilities.” At a meeting with his European colleagues, Macron urged military leaders from roughly 30 countries to begin developing a “plan to define reliable security guarantees” for Ukraine in the event of a peace agreement with Russia.
Romania’s Constitutional Court has denied candidate Calin Georgescu, who is accused of ties with Russia, permission to participate in the presidential elections. After the verdict was announced, Georgescu’s supporters began chanting slogans demanding that he be allowed to run in the election, and police reinforcements were called to the court building.
Blogger Alexandra Mitroshina is now under house arrest in Moscow after pleading guilty on Monday to money laundering charges. At her arraignment, she confessed to laundering 127 million rubles (roughly $1.5 million) in unpaid taxes through Moscow real estate purchases. Journalists from the news outlet Mediazona attended Mitroshina’s hearing, and Meduza summarizes their observations below.
Ukraine says it’s ready to accept a proposed 30-day ceasefire with Russia, provided Moscow abides by it too, the Ukrainian and U.S. delegations announced in a joint statement following talks in Jeddah on Tuesday.
By Ambrose Tardive – ScreenRant
The Far Side ended its run in publication thirty years ago, but ten years before that, in 1985, Gary Larson’s legendary newspaper cartoon was just preparing to reach the height of its success. These comics, which recently celebrated their 40th anniversaries, serve as a testament to why The Far Side remains an enduring fascination to this day.
Read More
By Ernest Scheyder – Mining.com
Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) hopes U.S. President Donald Trump declares copper a critical mineral, a move that would unlock tax credits needed to boost American production of the red metal and offset global rivals, CEO Kathleen Quirk said on Monday.
Trump told the U.S. Congress last week he would “take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals,” although he has yet to provide details. Copper is used widely across the global economy in power generation, electronics and construction.
From YouTube
What’s Eric Sprott’s secret to finding undervalued stocks? Kitco’s Senior Mining Editor and Anchor Paul Harris interviews industry titan Eric Sprott, Chief Executive Officer of Eric Sprott Family Office, at the 2025 Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada (PDAC).
Sprott discusses his early interest in precious metals, driven by the vulnerability of the NASDAQ in the late 1990s, and how gold and silver became the answer for portfolio survival.
Continue reading Silver is going to ‘skyrocket’ – Eric Sprott at Ahead of the Herd.
By Kenneth Jacobs – Project Syndicate
On a recent trip to Germany – where I gave a talk on the state of the mergers-and-acquisitions markets and what it implies about business confidence – I stumbled upon the house of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the towering writer who produced the most influential interpretation of the legend of Faust. It was a serendipitous development. In that story, a magician and alchemist bargains away his eternal soul to the devil for short-term power and riches.
Continue reading America’s Faustian Trade Bargain at Ahead of the Herd.
By Mike Maharrey – Money Metals
The silver market is forecast to record a fifth straight market deficit in 2025, with demand once again outstripping supply, and the majority of the existing above ground silver stocks are not available to satisfy demand — at any price.
According to analysis by the Silver Institute, silver price movement doesn’t correlate with changes in above ground stocks.
“Once only a storehouse of wealth, for instance in bars, silverware, jewelry, and coins, items that stay mostly as they were produced – and largely unavailable to the market – silver has become an industrial metal that usually gets consumed or otherwise taken out of circulation except for recycling, whose effect can vary.”
This is bad news given the rapidly increasing demand for silver, especially for industrial use.
Continue reading Most Above-Ground Silver Is Unavailable to Satisfy Demand at Ahead of the Herd.
2EMMA Featured Stories
Mandela’s Kiss Endures
The 2024 Global Elections Super-Cycle
Stay tuned for continuous updates on elections around the world. Click on a country for the latest elections data and analysis.
- Number of national elections to be held in 2024 18 of 68
- Overall turnout (based on registered voters) 63%
- Total number of ballots cast in 18 elections 467,094,737
Pulled conclusions from pooled data compilations
Using some of the world’s largest companies by market cap & some of the most quoted indices + two most sung alternatives: data for this millennia where available
- At 134x, Apple is the absolute stock price growth winner; with Amazon at 45x and Google at 32x
- Despite the lack of interest or dividends, gold at 6.6x looks good compared to any other stock or index!
- Barrick Gold on the other hand seems to be poorly correlated to anything including the gold metal itself!?
- But Barrick is the only stock producing negative correlations with most of the indices including a relatively high -0.77 with the Euronext100 index
- If one wast trying to get something totally uncorrelated on purpose- it would be hard to beat: gold and the Euronext100 index at -0.03; or Barrick and the Hang Seng index at 0.04; or gold and Merck at 0.16; or BTC and the FTSE index at 0.19
- Correlation against a basket of indices & alternatives is best in Disney and Google (0.81-0.82), albeit at different growth multiples
- If an average historical P/E is somewhere in the 20x range, then the current S&P quoted average which is in high 30s is as warned high, BUT: only Amazon and Visa seem to be widely out of range (justified by growth in online transactions?), with many below current & historical averages
- In the current world of no interest & no inflation, maybe the higher P/E averages are justified..? For how long, that is a different question…
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Ivan
Ivan
