Treasury International Capital (TIC) data published on Nov. 18 show foreign investors purchased $169 billion in U.S. government bonds in September, totaling a record $8.673 trillion.

Foreign investors bought a mix of short- and long-term bonds. Treasury bills—maturities between 30 days and 1 year—continue to appeal to bond investors, providing yields as high as 4.6 percent.

Japan and China, the two largest holders of U.S. debt, trimmed their holdings in September.

Tokyo erased about $6 billion, lowering its portfolio of Treasury securities to $1.123 trillion. Beijing reduced its holdings of U.S. government bonds by more than $2 billion to $772 billion.

While China has steadily decreased its exposure to Treasurys over the past several years, its holdings have changed little since September 2023.

Belgium ($41 billion), the United Kingdom ($21 billion), France ($16 billion), and Singapore ($9 billion) were the leading buyers, TIC figures show.

Hong Kong was the only other foreign market to register a nearly $3 billion decline.

The trend of foreign investment into U.S. Treasury securities has been unsurprising, given their vast demand at auctions over the last several months.

During the $42 billion auction of 10-year bonds on Nov. 5, indirect bidders—commonly foreign entities—purchased 62 percent of the supply. Direct bidders—domestic investors—bought less than a quarter of the issued bonds.

Foreign investors also acquired nearly two-thirds of the supply of 30-year bonds at the $25 billion auction on Nov. 6.

The yields in the United States bond market are some of the highest in the world. The U.S. Treasury market is also one of the largest and most liquid corners of international financial markets. Investors are hungry for yields with central banks unwinding their restrictive policy stances and launching a new easing cycle by cutting interest rates.

Despite the Federal Reserve following through on its rate-cut endeavors, Treasury securities have remained elevated. The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield, for example, has climbed nearly 80 basis points since the Fed lowered the federal funds rate for the first time in more than four years in September. As of Nov. 19, the 10-year bond is hovering at about 4.4 percent.

Treasury yield increases have also helped support the U.S. dollar.

The U.S. Dollar Index (DXY), a gauge of the greenback against a weighted basket of currencies, has surged nearly 2 percent over the past month, lifting its year-to-date gain to close to 5 percent. It also rallied to a one-year high of above 107.00 on Nov. 14.

The international reserve currency has rocketed on the futures market recently, shifting Fed policy expectations, with investors penciling only three quarter-point rate cuts by the end of next year, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

“The potential for fewer cuts from the Fed and a more dovish ECB [European Central Bank] has been a big factor behind the dollar’s advance over the last few months,” said Adam Turnquist, the chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.

Charles Seville, the senior director at Fitch Economics, believes the ECB will reduce interest rates faster amid weakening economic data.

“Although unemployment has yet to rise, labour markets are cooling and wage pressures subsiding,” Seville said in a research note last month.

“Past monetary tightening is clearly still affecting the economy. The ECB appears concerned that eurozone economic growth will undershoot its September forecasts, putting more downside pressure on inflation when it’s already close to target.”

The rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will hold its next two-day policy meeting on Dec. 17 and 18.

The U.S. dollar’s future direction will also depend on Wall Street’s confidence that President-elect Donald Trump will extend the expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and enact his sweeping tariff plans.

While a strengthening dollar benefits consumers and importers, it can also harm domestic companies that export their goods and services to foreign markets. The president-elect and his team have previously questioned the long-standing strong-dollar policy as they try to resurrect U.S. manufacturing.

“We have a big currency problem,” Trump told Bloomberg Businessweek this past summer, calling it a “tremendous burden” on U.S. businesses.

“Nobody wants to buy our product because it’s too expensive.”

However, Trump also pledged to protect the dollar hegemony and its chief reserve currency status, telling an audience of business leaders at the Economic Club of Chicago in October that the country could transition to “third-world status” if it the king dollar were dethroned.

According to Adam Glapiński, the esteemed governor of the National Bank of Poland (NBP), the central bank currently holds an impressive total of 420 tons of gold, thereby officially securing Poland’s position among nations with some of the largest gold reserves worldwide.

“Poland has entered the club of the world’s largest gold reserve holders,” Glapiński announced, emphasizing that this achievement surpasses that which is held by the United Kingdom.

Strategic Goals for Poland’s Gold Reserves

The governor confirmed that one primary objective for NBP is to elevate gold holdings to comprise 20% of its total foreign exchange reserves.

“This move will align us with the world’s leading economies,” Glapiński noted. At present, approximately 15% of Poland’s reserve assets are constituted by gold—a reflection that signifies substantial progress toward achieving this ambitious target.

In recent months, specifically over a period spanning five months, Poland has expeditiously intensified its efforts in acquiring additional quantities of gold—adding an impressive 39 tons—to bolster its already considerable reserves. Such strategic buildup serves as a testament to Poland’s proactive stance against potential global financial disruptions.

The Case for Gold: A Financial Shield

Glapiński has been an unwavering advocate for utilizing gold as a safeguard against financial crises and market volatility. He reiterated its unique qualities when he stated,

“Gold retains its value even in the event of a systemic collapse in the global financial network, where digital assets may fail.”

He further emphasized that this enduring asset remains impervious to credit risks and devaluation wrought by monetary policies—making it not merely valuable but remarkably durable as well.

Furthermore, it is crucial to recognize that Poland’s renewed focus on accumulating wealth through golden assets is deeply entrenched within historical contexts and national experiences; memories etched into collective consciousness regarding German occupation during World War II and subsequent Soviet-era dominance remind citizens alike about both tangible security measures and their undeniable importance amidst turbulent times ahead.

Cultural Significance and Economic Resilience

This profound sentiment resonates deeply within many Polish hearts; Marta Bassani-Prusik—the head expert overseeing precious metals trade at Mint Polska—highlighted such cultural significance succinctly:

“For many families, gold has been a lifeline through turbulent times, a tradition passed down for survival and security.”

By placing paramount importance upon acquiring more extensive stocks related directly back towards physical manifestations like golden bullion bars or coins themselves rather than relying solely upon fluctuating currencies alone ensures ultimately greater preparedness while simultaneously conveying determination towards enhancing national economic resilience moving forward into uncertain future landscapes ahead filled with challenges yet unseen across our globe today!

Undoubtedly then—we see here indeed how these achievements undeniably underscore wider commitments made toward attaining newfound autonomy concerning fiscal independence alongside ambitions directed solely aimed at long-term stability.

Article generated from corporate media reports.

Speaking at the APEC CEO Summit in Lima, Peru, on Nov. 14, Dimon criticized the regulatory environment for hindering lending, highlighting stringent capital requirements introduced after the financial crisis of 2008–09 that have forced banks to reduce their loan-to-deposit ratios.

“A lot of bankers, they’re, like, dancing in the street because they’ve had successive years and years of regulations, a lot of which stymied credit,” the JPMorgan chief said, according to a Bloomberg video of his remarks at the summit. “You could have kept the banks equally safe but had them do more credit.”

He noted that banks now lend only $65 for every $100 in deposits, compared to $100 previously, which he said stifles economic growth.

Dimon suggested that these regulations, while well-intentioned, have become a headwind for the economy.

“And if that’s what you want, if for some reason the regulators think they’re geniuses and that’s the best way to run the banking system, so be it,” Dimon said, adding that he believes it is possible to maintain financial stability without hindering lending.

Deregulation, he said, could benefit industries beyond banking. Dimon pointed to the slow permitting process for rare-earth mining in the United States as another example of regulatory inefficiency hampering economic growth.

“Ten years—they haven’t got their permits yet,” he said of companies seeking to extract critical minerals crucial for technology and defense industries. “It’s a shame. And we’re doing this to ourselves, and it’s a mistake.”

Dimon also praised President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal for a new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which aims to streamline bureaucracy.

“You could talk to any industry and they’ll give you examples of regulation that could be reduced to make it easier for them to do business while keeping the country safe,” he said.

When asked about the market’s strong reaction to Trump’s election victory, Dimon said it reflects optimism for a “pro-growth shock” as businesses prepare to make aggressive capital investments.

“You’ve already seen the markets have responded quite well,” he noted. “And I think America needs a growth strategy, so I literally applaud that,” he said.

Dimon emphasized that the agenda should go beyond slashing red tape to include broader reforms like improving the efficiency of the permitting process. “Collaboration between government and business is the way to have growth,” he said.

While the Trump administration appears poised to pursue a deregulatory agenda, the administration of President Joe Biden has emphasized consumer protections and systemic risk management.

Under the Biden administration, for example, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has seen a significant restoration of its authority, reversing the more hands-off approach taken during Trump’s first term. Since 2021, the CFPB has ramped up its oversight, launching investigations and enforcement actions against financial institutions accused of engaging in predatory lending, discriminatory practices, or misleading marketing. It has also cracked down on banks for practices such as “junk fees,” unauthorized account openings, and withholding of credit card rewards.

Also, during Biden’s term, U.S. banking regulators have focused more heavily on addressing systemic risks in the financial system, with a particular emphasis on implementing the final phase of Basel III reforms, often referred to as the “Basel III endgame.”

These reforms, developed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, aim to bolster the resilience of the banking sector by increasing capital requirements, enhancing risk-weighting measures, and introducing stricter leverage ratios.

Critics, including Dimon, have said that the stricter rules would not have prevented past bank failures and could have a negative impact on the economy.

The results are in, and on Nov. 5, Americans officially rejected the high prices and spiraling costs that defined much of the Biden-Harris administration—including the least affordable housing market in U.S. history.

Rather than being chastened by the national shellacking he, his vice president, and his party received, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department is pursuing an audacious move that could throw the housing market into disarray and put homeownership even further out of reach for middle-class Americans.

In a high-profile lawsuit filed last month, the DOJ is seeking to crack down on a case of alleged home-appraisal bias in Colorado, but the lawsuit could set a worrisome new precedent for the relationship between mortgage lenders and appraisers. The consequences could be sweeping, and they may weigh most heavily on the black homeowners and aspiring homeowners who the DOJ is ironically trying to protect with this lawsuit.

The DOJ is alleging that an appraiser, Maksym Mykhailyna, undervalued a black woman’s Denver home while she was applying for a refinance. Undervaluation typically results in a higher interest rate and a lower loan amount.

The Biden administration has made cracking down on this kind of alleged discrimination a focus, and Vice President Kamala Harris has led the White House’s efforts. Yet, the DOJ’s case hardly proves the appraiser undervalued the home. Even more importantly, the DOJ fails to show that unlawful racial bias skewed the appraisal results or that this singular incident is indicative of systemic discrimination permeating the appraisal industry.

These crackdowns over an illusory problem have been repeatedly and correctly criticized. The administration is fundamentally trying to expand the federal government’s role in housing with little understanding of how meddling with the appraisal process would ultimately affect prices and homebuyers.

The DOJ lawsuit and much of the Biden administration’s efforts on this issue are misguided. In this latest effort, the Justice Department is going beyond holding an allegedly prejudiced appraiser accountable. Along with Mykhailyna, the DOJ also names Rocket Mortgage, the lender with whom the homeowner was seeking a refinancing, as a co-defendant.

The DOJ’s decision to go after the mortgage lender for the actions of an appraiser in this case not only contradicts federal law, but also risks reversing years of housing industry reforms that keep home prices in check.

Setting precedent to hold lenders accountable for the actions of independent appraisers would reintroduce the conflicts of interest that helped inflate home prices and created a housing bubble in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis. A repeat of those circumstances would make homes even more expensive and put homeownership even further out of reach for many Americans.

Passed in the wake of the 2008 crisis, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act explicitly bars mortgage lenders from influencing appraisers. The legislation established appraiser independence by mandating that lenders order appraisals through third-party companies called appraisal management companies. These companies are a critical degree of separation between lenders and appraisers that protect the housing industry from the conflicts of interest that led to the 2008 disaster. The DOJ’s efforts to punish the lender in the Colorado lawsuit threaten to erode the independence of appraisers.

Before 2008, there were no appraisal management companies, and appraisers were heavily dependent on the mortgage lenders that assigned them work. That conflict of interest led appraisers to overvalue homes in order to authorize bigger and more profitable loans for the mortgage lenders. That fueled the market bubble that eventually popped, tanking the global economy, nearly toppling the entire financial sector, and setting many American families back years.

If the Biden DOJ has its way, the U.S. could return to the pre-2008 housing industry. The potential for baseless lawsuits alleging undervaluation will incentivize both appraisers and lenders to overvalue properties—fueling yet more home price inflation and injecting more risk into the system.

Housing costs are already out of control. Minority communities across this country are disproportionately locked out of homeownership. Rather than pursuing splashy headlines for baseless lawsuits that would ultimately hurt Americans and further exacerbate prices, the government should be diminishing the footprint of the government-sponsored enterprises—namely, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—that have helped create a second housing bubble in the past 20 years.

The bottom line is that the DOJ’s misguided efforts here could wind up hurting all aspiring homeowners, including the very people of color who the Biden administration says that it is trying to stand up for.

Existing civil right laws already protect homeowners against racially biased appraisal practices. These laws should continue to be enforced. Regulators or legislators could task the appraisal management companies with keeping a more watchful eye over the appraisers and potential trends in their work. But the effort to burden the mortgage lenders with the responsibility of solving appraisal discrimination is not only misguided, it is deeply harmful to aspiring homeowners, the housing sector, and the financial industry.

The incoming Trump administration should immediately audit the Biden administration’s backward housing reforms and halt this lawsuit before it causes damage to the system. Woke, affirmative action policies are misguided and wind up hurting everyone. Voters want a return to simple, logic-driven policy, and this is one area to start with.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

Economics takes ends and goals of action as a given and—in matters of value judgments—it assumes neutrality (i.e., non-normativity), which is characteristic of a science. However, questions of suitability of means and various policies adopted to attain chosen ends are not beyond the scope of economic analysis.

The “Dismal” Task of the Economist

The competent economist—when presented with a proposed plan of action—always asks: Is the means adopted suitable for the attainment of the end in view? He critically analyzes the means in question and declares their fitness or unfitness on the basis of logical demonstrations that are unassailable and apodictly true. This peculiar task of the economist is often misapprehended as an expression of his value judgments and an attempt to frustrate the attainment of ends chosen. Thus, the economist is often met with disapproval.

More significant in the history of the science are the several attempts to discredit the economists through a denial of economics as a universally-valid science, applicable for all peoples, times, and places. This is a pernicious attempt because the social, political, and economic consequences tend to be disastrously far-reaching. This article attempts to establish a connection between a denial of economics and the emergence of totalitarianism.

Historicism as a Precursor of Totalitarianism

Historicism was one of such concerted attempts at denying the universal validity of the body of economic theorems. The historicists advanced the view that economic theories are not valid for all peoples, places, and times; and thus, are only relevant to the specific historical conditions of their authors. The German Historical School’s rejection of the free trade theories, propounded by the classical economists, was not on grounds of inherent inadequacies in these theories—given that they never unmasked any logical errors as to the untenability of these theories—but motivated by ideological pre-possessions. Mises puts it very succinctly in Epistemological Problems of Economics:

The historian must never forget that the most momentous occurrence in the history of the last hundred years, the attack launched against the universally valid science of human action and its hitherto best developed branch, economics, was motivated from the very beginning not by scientific ideas but by political considerations.

Historicism is bound to lead to some form of logical relativism, and it is not surprising that the doctrine of racial polylogism gained a general acceptance among many Germans in the early twentieth century. In order to invalidate the relevance of a theory on grounds of historical or racial origins of the author, one has to proceed with the indefensible assumption of differences in the logical character of the human mind amongst different peoples and within the same people at different historical epochs. But in fact, there is no scientific evidence as to the existence of these differences in the logical structure of the human mind. Thus the historicists’ arguments against the universal validity of economic theory are unfounded.

The social, economic, and political significance of a denial of economics would also imply the denial of insights from economics about the preservation of society—concerted action in voluntary cooperation. Economic theory asserts that there is greater productivity to be obtained from social organization under the division of labor than would be obtained in individual self-sufficiency. The Ricardian Law of Association explains the tendency of humans to intensify cooperation given a rightly-understood interest in better satisfying wants under the social order of the division of labor. While there are many ways for people to coexist in the world, there are fewer ways for them to coexist peacefully and prosperously. This is the central lesson of classical economics about human society.

Historicism’s denial of the universal validity of these theories on non-logical grounds betrays a prejudice for policies aimed at attaining the alternative of autarkic self-sufficiency and the substitution of the social apparatus with coercion and compulsion. In fact, the Nazi totalitarian regime, whose intellectual precursor was German historicism, never relented in applying force to induce cooperation while simultaneously pursuing autarkic self-sufficiency by means of disastrous policies. Thus, German historicism, in denying the universal validity of economic theory and the general laws of human action as advanced by praxeology, played a causal role by creating a favorable intellectual climate for arbitrariness and the subsequent emergence of Nazi totalitarianism.

Marxism as Pseudo-Economics

Marxist socialism, on the other hand, denies the validity of economic theories on grounds of the “class origins” of the economists. Like historicism, it subscribes to a variant of polylogism in which it asserts the existence of a difference in the logical structure of mind for the respective social classes—even though Marx never defined what he meant by “class.” Consequently, for the Marxians, the science of economics becomes mere ideological expression of the class interest of the exploiting class—the bourgeoisie.

It is precisely the fact that Marxism rejects the essential teachings of economics in favor of utopian ideas which fail to achieve the ends sought wherever it was tried. The ultimate goals of Marxians—improvement in material and social conditions of its adherents—are no different from those of their liberal counterparts of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries who enjoyed considerable improvements in standard of living; it is in the choices of means that they differ. But it is the unsuitability of the means adopted by the Marxians that always and everywhere frustrated the attainment of ends sought by Marxism.

Furthermore, as with the capitalist system, based on private ownership of the means of production, the pure socialist commonwealth must be faced with the problem of allocation of resources in view of satisfying the most urgent wants of its citizens. And in this regard, Mises, in his irrefutable criticism of the socialist commonwealth, exposes the impossibility of socialism. He argues that, given the absence of a price structure for factors of production, the problem of impracticality of economic calculation must emerge in a socialist community. The planner, without recourse to tools of economic calculation, would be lost amid the sea of economic possibilities.

That capitalism has succeeded in improving the lives of men wherever its institutions are left unhampered is because those societies recognize the validity of economic theory about the potential benefits of the free market. They did not adopt arbitrary policies that economists declared unfit for the ends they sought to attain. Thus, the horrors brought about by the series of abortive attempts to implement the utopian ideas of socialist thinkers are the logical consequences of a denial of economics.

The Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Totalitarianism

The doctrine of interventionism wrongly conceives of a compatibility of the market and violent interventions by the state, between social cooperation and the apparatus of coercion and compulsion. It purports to be a third economic system—a compromise between capitalism and socialism. But, as the logical demonstrations of the economists show us over and over, interventionism, so-called middle-of-the-road policy, inevitably leads to socialism. Interventionism is, in fact, a denial of economics in that economics recognizes that interventions of any sort in the market tend to produce outcomes that—judged from the point of view of their initiators—are even more dissatisfactory than the previous problems that they pretend to fix.

Mises clearly remarks in his short book The Historical Setting of the Austrian School of Economics that “the worst illusion of our age is the superstitious confidence placed in panaceas, which—as the economists have irrefutably demonstrated—are contrary to purpose.” Interventionism, carried to its logical conclusion, is bound to lead to totalitarianism, given that the more its policies fail to produce the desired outcomes, the more the statesmen who wrongly believe in the appropriateness of interventionist measures find it necessary to employ the coercive state apparatus to compensate for their failures.

Economics and the Free-Market System

The science of economics is a rational science that recognizes the primacy of the laws of human society. Economics teaches that the market is a system of logically necessary relations brought about by the actions of individuals seeking to satisfy their most urgent wants. It teaches that any instance of coercion aimed at influencing the actions of individuals is disruptive to the market process. A denial of these teachings would inevitably lead to the state of affairs in which force becomes the only means of eliciting the cooperation of individuals in society.

Note: The views expressed on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute.

GOBankingRates conducted an analysis of the 100 largest U.S. cities by population, using the average Social Security benefits for married couples to assess how far this income stretches when set against living costs.

The recent study reveals that in many U.S. cities, Social Security benefits fall far short of covering even half a month’s living expenses for married retirees. In particular, six major cities—including Irvine, Fremont, San Jose, San Francisco, Honolulu, and San Diego—offer the briefest financial coverage from Social Security, with benefits lasting between just 6.73 and 9.59 days, according to GoBankingRates.com.

Irvine, California, stands out as the city where benefits stretch the least, covering under a week’s worth of expenses, with a monthly cost of living that exceeds $9,700 for a couple.

The findings show that California is a challenging state for retirees relying on Social Security alone, with 15 of its cities appearing in the top 50 cities where benefits last the shortest.

Within the top 10 cities with the shortest Social Security coverage, California holds seven spots, underscoring the high cost of living in the state. While Irvine ranks as the most expensive, Stockton, California, provides the most days of coverage in the state at nearly 18 days—though even this is well below a full month.

At the other end of the spectrum, Saint Petersburg, Florida, ranks as the city where Social Security lasts the longest among the 50 cities analyzed, stretching to 19.38 days for married couples. This reflects the lower cost of living in Saint Petersburg, where expenses amount to $1,584 monthly.

Florida’s comparatively affordable living costs mean that, while Social Security coverage still falls short of a full month, retirees may face less financial strain.

The GoBankingRates.com study showed that beyond California and Florida, cities like Arlington, Virginia, and Seattle also show limited Social Security coverage, lasting only around 10 to 11 days. Arlington, with a monthly cost of $5,307, and Seattle, at $4,733, both represent high-cost areas where retirees might struggle to maintain financial stability on Social Security alone.

Honolulu is the sole representative from Hawaii in the top six, where the high cost of living cuts Social Security coverage to just over 8 days.

The study’s detailed breakdown shows a significant disparity between cities, where monthly costs range from $9,794 in Irvine to $1,584 in Saint Petersburg. Even cities with more affordable housing and expenses, such as Gilbert, Arizona, and Austin, Texas, provide just around 16 days of coverage, demonstrating that even in lower-cost cities, retirees would need supplementary income to cover basic living expenses each month.

Ultimately, the findings illustrate the pressing financial challenge facing retirees in urban areas across the United States. With the cost of living continually rising, retirees must consider alternative income sources or substantial savings to bridge the gap left by Social Security benefits, especially in cities where expenses drastically outpace what Social Security provides.

You can view the study’s methodology and full results here.

Americans “overwhelmingly rejected the ideological takeover of political and civic life by narrow-minded identity politics” in the Nov. 5 election, a coalition of 38 financial officers wrote in letters warning companies that the new administration will “hasten the demise of DEI.”

“You stand at an important crossroads,” the letter states. “Either you can heed the voice of the American people—your shareholders, customers, and employees—or you can bow to fringe activists who demand that you double down on a failing ideology.”

Companies scored on the Alliance Defending Freedom’s Viewpoint Diversity index, along with Fortune 1000 companies not scored, received letters from the investor advisor coalition.

ADF’s 2024 Viewpoint Diversity index revealed that 91 percent of companies scored use critical race theory in their training materials for employees. The index measured the 85 biggest technology and finance companies on their respect for free speech and religious freedom.

Jeremy Tedesco, senior vice president of corporate engagement for Alliance Defending Freedom, told the Daily Caller News Foundation it’s clear that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) is already “on its way out.”

“What the Trump administration does could really speed up that process, which will ultimately be good for those corporations, for their workforce, for the broader society, because DEI is a toxic ideology that harms everybody it comes into contact with,” he said.

Some companies have already changed DEI policies as a result of pressure from consumers and shareholders, ending their participation in the left-wing Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and abandoning diversity initiatives, Tedesco noted. Under pressure from conservative activist Robby Starbuck, companies like Lowe’s and Tractor Supply Co backtracked on DEI policies, including sponsoring LGBTQ pride parades.

Companies began rolling back their DEI programs after the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in higher education in 2023 and conservatives increased their focus on specifically targeting corporations with legal challenges.

“While we urge you to distance yourself from DEI and highly divisive groups like the Human Rights Campaign—which bullies companies into adopting radical, wrong-headed, and reputationally disastrous policies—we also want to caution you against retracting your goal of protecting the civil liberties and dignity of all employees,” the letter continues. “As fiduciaries of your companies, we manage over $16 billion in assets, and we represent working Americans who depend on us to safeguard their financial future, retirement planning, and more. You owe these investors transparency and, when necessary, proactive changes that are in their best financial interests to serve and foster a healthy civil society.”

Inspire Investing director of corporate engagement Tim Schwarzenberger, whose company signed onto the letters, said shareholders “expect those in the c-suite to deliver positive financial results that meet customer demand and contribute to a healthy, civil society.”

“That’s not too much to ask,” Schwarzenberger said in a statement to the DCNF. “For too long, however, corporate leaders have been bullied into taking increasingly extreme positions on hot-button cultural issues and implementing harmful DEI policies that divide up the workforce and society itself.”

Dr. OJ Oleka, Chief Executive Officer of the State Financial Officers Foundation, said public employees “like teachers, law enforcement officers, and fire fighters rely on state financial officers to make and recommend sound fiduciary decisions to secure their financial future.”

“I know this firsthand, as my mother is the beneficiary of my late father’s public pension from his career as a public university professor,” he said in a statement. “My mother deserves the promise of my late father’s pension, and so does everyone else who worked hard to earn one. The DEI regime does not deliver on that promise.”

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].

But now with President Trump once again taking the White House, one investment bank is advising ESG fund managers to “keep their lawyers very close”, as the full scale death of ESG may very well be on the door step, according to Yahoo Finance.

Aniket Shah wrote in a note this week: “We’d encourage all ESG fund managers to have a lawyer on the team, or on speed-dial.”

He continued: “Antitrust risk remains high for asset managers in ESG; there haven’t been any cases yet, thus there is no legal precedent. Further, legal risks regarding fiduciary duty will stay relevant as states enforce anti-ESG laws.”

Yahoo reports that Trump’s victory has already hit green sector stocks, with wind-energy companies among the hardest hit. Beyond potential bans and obstructive policies, the ESG sector faces rising legal risks.

Key GOP figures argue ESG-focused firms neglect fiduciary duties, while Republican attorneys general accuse financial firms using ESG metrics of collusion against fossil fuels and fueling inflation.

In response, “greenhushing”—keeping ESG efforts quiet—is likely, Jefferies analysts note. Corporate CEOs are also expected to seek legal guidance to adapt to this shifting landscape.

Jeffries said: “General counsels are in the ear of CEOs, frightened about legal retaliation to ESG initiatives. The backlash could lead to more focused and pragmatic companies, engaging in strategic discussions closely tied to their business model.”

Analysts argue that a public backlash, similar to 2016, could pressure companies to address issues like abortion and diversity. Conflicting state policies on ESG could create a “nightmare” of fragmented requirements, they warn.

Shareholders may still push for ESG risk disclosures aligned with the International Sustainability Standards Board, even as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce maintains it isn’t against ESG or climate disclosures. Notably, these observations focus on the ESG label itself, not the broader clean energy transition.

The manufacturing sector is dealing with the greatest crisis that it has faced since the 1940s, the big banks are struggling, and the coalition that was running the government has collapsed.  Did David Wilkerson see what was going to happen all the way back in the 1970s?

Something that Steve Quayle posted the other day got me thinking, and so I decided to look into it.  In Wilkerson’s book entitled “The Vision”, he stated that he was shown “economic confusion striking Europe first” during a period of great economic turmoil for the whole world.  In a subsequent sermon, he was even more specific.  In fact, in that sermon he specifically stated that the collapse that he saw would “start in Germany”…

To give some background, first, in his book, “The Vision,” at the beginning of chapter 1, Wilkerson states, “I see total economic confusion striking Europe first, and then affecting Japan, the United States, Canada, and all other nations shortly thereafter.”

So, the economic collapse begins in Europe. There is a slightly different version of this which is circulating on various sites on the internet, usually titled “David Wilkerson’s Economic Vision.” This is the one you quoted, where he narrates how the collapse starts in Europe, spreads to South America, then Mexico, then the U.S. Notice he again mentions Europe first, and then later, “the first country (that) goes bankrupt,” but doesn’t identify the country. Well, I did some more digging and found this audio sermon by Wilkerson:

AT EXACTLY 2:03 (see audio below) HE STATES: “It’s going to start in GERMANY!!!” After that he says it will “spread to Japan, and finally to the U.S.”

You can actually listen to David Wilkerson say these things with your own ears in this YouTube video…

Could it be possible that what Wilkerson warned us about so many years ago is starting to happen right in front of our eyes?

For the past few years, Germany’s economic performance has been absolutely horrible…

The world’s third-largest economy has lagged the European Union average since 2021 and is expected to shrink for the second year running in 2024, making it the worst performer among the Group of Seven major economies.

According to an article that was posted on ABC News, there are several reasons why the German economy has been struggling so deeply…

German industry still has not fully recovered from the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then came Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which led Germany and other Western countries to cut themselves off from Russian gas and oil. Competition from China, including its electric vehicles, has meanwhile forced German and other and European carmakers to lower production and lay off workers.

Of course that article did not even mention the radical green agenda that Germany has implemented, but many are convinced that it is the primary factor for the economic decline that we have been witnessing.

At one time, Volkswagen was an unstoppable economic powerhouse, but now it is talking about closing factories and laying off workers…

Nothing better encapsulates the negativity gripping Germany than what’s happening at Volkswagen, the biggest employer in Europe’s largest economy. The spillover effect of the crisis at Volkswagen, which is looking to shut down as many as three factories in Germany — the first ever shuttering of units in its 87-year history — is showing up in the fractures in Germany’s politics now widening to a chasm.

BASF is another German industrial giant that is facing major problems that would have been unthinkable just a few short years ago…

BASF, for instance, a flagship of Germany’s industrial sector since 1865, symbolizes the nation’s manufacturing strength. With nearly 400 production sites across 80 countries, its heart remains in Ludwigshafen, Germany, where it operates a vast complex with 200 plants and employs around 39,000 people. However, this hub has recently become a focal point for BASF’s challenges.

Over the past two years, the company has shut down one of its two ammonia units and idled several others at this location due to their lack of competitiveness, resulting in the loss of 2,500 jobs, explains Chemical and Engineering News. BASF also experienced a significant decline in 2023, with sales dropping by 21.1% and adjusted earnings plunging by 60.1%. Adding to these woes, BASF recently announced plans to cut costs by an additional $1.1 billion in Ludwigshafen, foreshadowing further job cuts.

In my entire lifetime, we have never seen anything like this happen to Germany.

The politicians are desperate to turn things around, and a conflict about how to do that has resulted in the collapse of Germany’s ruling coalition…

Germany’s governing coalition has collapsed after disagreements over the country’s weak economy led Chancellor Olaf Scholz to sack his finance minister.

Christian Lindner’s dismissal prompted him to withdraw his Free Democrats Party (FDP) from a coalition with Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), leaving Scholz in a minority government with the Green Party.

Scholz said he would now call a confidence vote for January 15, which, if he lost, could allow elections to be held by the end of March next year – six months earlier than the elections planned for September 2025.

We shall see whether there is an election in March or not.

But meanwhile, there is fear that the collapse of the government will “deal another blow to consumption and investment in coming months”…

The coalition collapse is likely to deal another blow to consumption and investment in coming months, already poised to decline, with a third of German companies indicating in a recent survey plans to scale it back.

“In combination with the Trump win, economic confidence is likely to drop significantly and makes a contraction of the economy in the fourth quarter more likely,” said Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomics at ING.

I do believe that governmental instability will accelerate the economic problems that the Germans have been experiencing.

And as more German businesses fail, I would watch the big banks very carefully.  They have been on shaky ground for years, and it won’t take much to start pushing them over the edge.

Germany possesses the largest and most important economy in the entire European Union, and so once the German economy implodes the rest of the EU will feel an immense amount of pain too.

Wilkerson warned that the crisis would spread from Europe to Japan and then to the United States.  And as I have warned for many years, it won’t be too long before the entire world is gripped by unprecedented economic turmoil.

So let’s keep a close eye on Germany.

I think that something is up.

Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

Many expect the Trump administration to enact lower taxes, lighter regulations, and reverse many signature programs of the Biden administration, including the government-mandated transition from fossil fuel energy to wind and solar, and from gasoline-powered cars and trucks to electric vehicles (EVs).

“I think a lot of CEOs in the country said enough is enough,” Andy Puzder, former chief executive of CKE Restaurants, told The Epoch Times.

“Just look at the stock market on the day after the election and you can see exactly how American CEOs and American businesses felt about Trump winning the presidency.”

Cutting Regulations

Regulatory policy is likely the area where the incoming administration could have the most immediate impact on businesses.

According to an analysis by the American Action Forum (AAF), as of August this year, the Biden administration has handed down 994 new regulatory rules, adding an estimated $1.69 trillion in costs to American businesses. By comparison, during Trump’s first four years in office, his administration wrote 1,084 new rules that mostly eased regulations and reduced costs by $99.9 billion.

“Agencies like the EPA and Department of Energy regularly acknowledge in their cost-benefit analyses how energy efficiency regulations will raise up-front product costs,” AAF director of regulatory policy Dan Goldbeck told The Epoch Times.

A July study by University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan calculated that the present value of the cost of regulations imposed by the Biden–Harris administration amounted to $47,000 for each American household, while deregulation during the Trump administration reduced costs by nearly $11,000 per household.

The new fuel economy standards set by the Biden administration, for example, are predicted to add $3,400 to the cost of new cars, trucks, and SUVs. The Biden administration similarly imposed tough new emissions restrictions on electric utilities, as well as new efficiency regulations on furnaces, water heaters, central air conditioners, dishwashers, and other household appliances.

Trump, by contrast, pledged during a campaign rally in October to “sign an executive order directing every federal agency to immediately remove every single burdensome regulation driving up the cost of goods.”

Trump has also toyed with appointing Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk to run a newly-proposed Department of Government Efficiency, with the goal of cutting $2 trillion or more from the federal budget.

“If what President Trump says about establishing a government efficiency agency with Elon Musk is in fact going to happen, and they have the fortitude to start taking a chainsaw to government bureaucracy, that would be positive for the economy long-term, but there will likely be some added pain over the short-term,” Tim Schwarzenberger, portfolio manager with Inspire Investments, told The Epoch Times.

While Schwarzenberger predicts a recession in early 2025, he says that Trump’s policies “could make that downturn less severe as he will be cutting taxes and regulations and opening up energy production, while at the same time reducing green energy programs and possibly reforming Medicaid.”

Boosting Oil and Gas Production

America’s energy industry will be the sector most heavily impacted by the change in administrations, analysts say.

“Trump is likely to remove regulations and other limits on fracking and other forms of energy production, which would be good for oil drillers, refiners, and sectors that use a lot of energy products: transportation, manufacturing, aviation and others,” Peter Earle, senior economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.

Despite efforts by the Biden administration to restrict drilling on federal lands, U.S. oil and gas production continues to break records. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in March that “the United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time, according to our International Energy Statistics, for the past six years in a row.”

However, given America’s abundance of energy resources, analysts say there is a lot of room to expand domestic production further.

“We’ve got record production of energy, but it’s all happened despite the administration, and on lands that the administration cannot control,” Dan Kish, senior vice president of policy at the Institute for Energy Research, told The Epoch Times. “We just don’t think there’s any reason to have a scarcity of affordable and reliable electricity or energy of any kind in the United States.”

Expanding energy production, particularly in oil and gas, has been a cornerstone of Trump’s economic platform.

“One of the major proposals in energy has been to ease the permitting process of drilling on federal land and encouraging new natural gas pipelines, which will ultimately create greater supply and should reduce consumer costs and have positive economic impacts,” Ryan Yonk, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, told The Epoch Times.

Coal plants, which are facing closures due to new emissions regulations, could also benefit under a Trump administration. According to the Department of Energy (DOE), nearly one-third of existing U.S. coal plants are scheduled to be shut down by 2035. But that may change.

Brian Savoy, CFO of Duke Energy, an electricity utility that serves the Carolinas, Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky, said his company might keep its coal plants running if the Trump administration cuts back EPA emissions regulations that were enacted under the Biden administration.

However, while it is one thing to get oil and gas companies to produce more from existing wells, it is quite another to get them to invest significant capital into exploration and building new wells and refineries. It is not only regulatory uncertainty that is holding them back, it is also the over-investment that led to a glut, which drove prices down a decade ago. By reducing the cost of regulation and providing some assurance that the industry will not be targeted by climate mandates, analysts say the incoming Trump administration might reduce the cost structure enough to entice the industry to begin investing again.

“What President Trump did in his first term, and what President Biden has been unable to do, is to get the price of oil down and have oil production continue at an increasing pace,” Puzder said. “That’s when you see an impact on inflation overall; it’s when oil companies can make a profit at a lower price per barrel.”

Many analysts predict that if a second Trump term can bring lower energy prices, this will have a ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy.

Retail gasoline prices, which were already coming down during the final years of the Obama administration, hit a low of less than $2 per gallon during the first Trump administration and remained under $3 per gallon throughout his term. Gas prices shot up to more than $5 per gallon during the Biden administration before falling back to the current range of between $3 and $4 per gallon.

“All of these things that have gone up in price significantly are affected by the input costs of energy,” Kish said. “Everything that goes into the price of eggs is affected by the price of energy—it’s heating the hen house, it’s the energy consumed in making food to feed the chickens, it’s the transportation of the eggs, it’s the refrigeration.”

Renewable Energy May Retreat

One segment of the stock market that has not responded well to Trump’s victory, however, is renewable energy.

The stock price of Sunnova Energy, a solar energy developer, tumbled from $6.90 per share on election day to $3.96 per share the following day, and continued to fall to just over $3 per share at the end of the week. More broadly, the Solar Energy Index CFD, which tracks the performance of publicly traded companies in the solar energy sector, fell from $42 before the election to $36 by week’s end.

Anticipated headwinds regarding federal regulations and subsidies that support this industry are the likely cause.

“Trump has pledged to kill the offshore wind industry on his first day in office,” Robert Bryce, energy analyst and author, told The Epoch Times. “There’s no reason to doubt that he will do just that, which will be good news for whales and ratepayers.”

In addition, “the Biden administration has opened huge tracts of land in the Western U.S. to development [for wind and solar plants],” Bryce said. “I expect Trump and his appointees will backtrack on that and may even withdraw some of the permits that have already been granted.”

Reaching net zero has been a central goal of the Biden–Harris administration, which committed in April 2023 to “achieving a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.”

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 allocated approximately $400 billion in tax credits, federal loans and subsidies toward the production of “green” energy in the United States, primarily for wind and solar power, but also for nuclear energy.

However, a 2021 University of Chicago report, authored by economists Michael Greenstone and Ishan Nath, analyzed regulations, called renewable portfolio standards (RPS), which forced utilities to have at least 2 to 5 percent of their power come from wind and solar, and concluded that “electricity prices are 11 percent higher seven years after RPS passage.”

In addition, a 2021 report by Columbia University’s Climate School, found that as the share of renewables exceeds a minimal share of the energy mix, electricity bills go up.

“Continuing to push the false narrative of abundant and affordable clean energy is a huge political risk that will backfire when the public has to pony up for a bill they weren’t expecting,” the report’s author Lucas Toh writes.

Cutting Personal Taxes, Hiking Tariffs

Tax policy is another area where many expect to see significant changes under a Trump administration.

Much of the tax cutting that Trump pledged during his reelection campaign will require cooperation from Congress, and while Republicans were able to gain a majority in the Senate, they are still waiting on vote counts to see whether they will also control the House.

Particularly significant is whether Republicans will succeed in extending the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017, which is due to expire in 2025.

The TCJA cut the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, and while this rate cut has no expiry date, both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris had proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28 percent.

If the TCJA is not renewed, however, personal income tax rates will rise, standard deductions will be reduced, and the child tax credit will be reduced as well. The maximum tax bracket will go up from 37 percent to 39.6 percent; however, the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local taxes, which largely benefitted wealthy people in high-tax states such as California and New York, will no longer apply.

To the extent keeping these tax cuts in place spurs consumption and investment, many economists favor it. Critics, however, fear it will reduce government revenue and increase the federal deficit, which is projected by the Congressional Budget Office to hit $1.9 trillion at the end of this year.

Government revenues do not always correlate to tax rates, however, and if the tax cuts lead to significant economic growth, they could end up bringing in more tax revenues. Government tax receipts have increased consistently since the passage of the TCJA, from $3.3 trillion in 2017 to $4.4 trillion in 2023, according to Statista.

Other elements of Trump’s tax plan have received less positive reviews.

This includes his pledge to impose 20 percent tariffs on most imports, and tariffs as high as 60 percent on Chinese imports, which could include EVs, wind and solar components, furniture, toys, clothes, and sporting equipment.

Import taxes at this level “would spike the average tariff rate on all imports to highs not seen since the Great Depression,” Tax Foundation economist Erica York wrote. It could hurt the retail industry and fuel inflation.

However, it is unclear how much a Trump administration will ultimately differ from his predecessor in regard to trade with China.

During his term in office, Trump imposed about $80 billion in new import taxes on thousands of products such as steel, aluminum, appliances, semiconductors, and solar panels, many of which were coming from China, according to the Tax Foundation.

The Biden administration kept most of those tariffs in place, and in May added an additional $3.6 billion in tariffs on Chinese imports, including semiconductors and electric vehicles. And while the Trump administration collected $89 billion from so-called “trade war” tariffs, the Biden administration collected more than $144 billion.

In addition, Trump’s pledge to cut taxes on tips, which Vice President Kamala Harris also promised to implement, has been met with some skepticism.

“Among the most popular proposals are those to lower or stop taxation on tips and overtime wages for service workers, or eliminate taxes on social security benefits,” Yonk said.

But these piecemeal efforts would have little overall economic benefit, while further complicating the tax code and raising questions about fairness for workers outside the service industry, York said.

“Instead, extending the tax cuts from the first term and expanding them, without narrowly targeting specific groups, would yield better economic effects and create broad-based tax relief rather than special programs for narrower groups,” he said.