Month: March 2025

Authored by Luis Cornelio via Headline USA,

The Trump administration has fired nearly half the bureaucrats at the obscure—and infamously named—U.S. Institute of Peace, as part of DOGE’s effort to cut government waste and reduce the size of the federal government. 

The mass firings, estimated to have affected between 200 and 300 workers and described by staffers as a “Friday night massacre,” came two weeks after President Donald Trump removed the agency’s president, Lise Grande. 

According to the liberal Washington Post, the Trump administration offered generous severance packages and an extra month of health insurance in exchange for workers signing agreements not to sue the government.  

The agreements are likely intended to avert additional lawsuits by bureaucrats attempting to force taxpayers to continue funding their salaries. 

What the U.S. Institute of Peace actually does was relatively unknown until it became a target of Trump’s downsizing efforts two weeks ago. 

Created by Congress in 1984, the self-described “nonpartisan” organization claimed via its Facebook page that it is “dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad.” 

It is unclear how USIP’s work differs from that of the already enormous Department of State and its global bureaucracy. 

“We put mediators in place to help stitch these communities back together,” an anonymous USIP employee told The Washington Post. 

“So it does have a dramatic effect on violence on the ground immediately by just pulling these assets out.” 

As recounted by the liberal newspaper, USIP attempted to challenge the White House’s authority to investigate its programs or fire workers, similar actions taken by the now-defunct U.S. Agency for International Development. 

USIP and members of the board filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that the executive branch lacks authority to shut down its operations because they were created by Congress. 

Sunday saw more threats directed at Iran by President Trump. He told NBC News in a phone interview, “If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing. It will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.” This is the most explicit and direct threat yet, after similar rhetoric from the White House last week. Three weeks ago President Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader, urging fresh negotiations toward a new nuclear deal. 

In that letter, which the Iranians only much belatedly acknowledged, Trump had issued a two-month deadline for Iran to sign a new deal, warning that if not then Tehran could face military action. Axios and other outlets have highlighted the movement of B-2 stealth bombers in the Indian Ocean, connected with the warnings issued to Iran:

In recent days, the U.S. military sent several B-2 stealth bombers to the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean in a deployment a U.S. official said was “not disconnected” from Trump’s two-month deadline.

The same report notes, “The B-2 bombers can carry huge bunker buster bombs that would be a key element in any possible military action against Iran’s underground nuclear facilities.”

But the Islamic Republic has also long maintained underground ‘missile cities’. The immense size of these underground complexes would make it nearly impossible to take out all of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities without an intense, sustained war.

If a new major war in the Middle East kicked off under the Trump administration, it would become deeply unpopular even among the conservative base. The public is generally war-weary, which is also why Trump is pushing hard for peace in Ukraine.

Any new US bombing campaign in Iran could also complicate US efforts for peace in Ukraine, further as in parallel the US tries to keep the Abraham Accords in the Middle East alive.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has responded to these new Trump threats, saying Sunday that any future diplomatic discussion depends on Washington’s behavior. 

“While Iran’s response rules out the possibility of direct talks between the two sides, it states that the path for indirect negotiations remains open,” he said. “As we have stated before, Iran has never closed the channels of indirect communication. In its response, Iran reaffirmed that it has never shied away from engaging in negotiations, but rather, it has just been the United States’ repeated violations of agreements and commitments that have created problems on this path,” Pezeshkian added.

That’s when the Iranian leader emphasized, “It’s the behavior of the Americans that will determine whether the negotiations can move forward.” Iran has distrusted the Americans ever since Trump pulled out of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal in April 2018. Currently Iran is only offering ‘indirect’ talks on the nuclear issue.

Lately the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has described that the Islamic Republic’s current stockpile of 60% enriched uranium – if enriched to 90% – would be enough to produce six nuclear bombs.

Trump has recently brought back ‘maximum pressure’ on Iran, and has even this week advanced the possibility of cracking down on sanctions-busting Iranian oil exports on the high seas, using naval intervention. Clearly this is part of the big stick package of actions meant to push Tehran to the table. And now he’s talking secondary tariffs on Iranian oil as well.

An earlier Fox News interview in February marked the point at which Trump first laid out that Iran has two choices. “Everybody thinks Israel with our help or our approval will go in and bomb the hell out of them,” Trump had said at the time while discussing potential Israeli military action against Tehran.

“I would prefer that not happen. I’d much rather see a deal with Iran where we can do a deal, supervise, check it, inspect it,” the president had emphasized.

Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

A correction in equity markets tends to generate an immediate negative reaction from citizens, citing political headlines about tariffs and trade as the reasons for equity volatility. However, if markets were scared about the US economy, German and Japanese sovereign bonds would not have declined. Furthermore, at the close of this article, 493 stocks in the S&P 500 are flat in the first quarter despite having reached all-time highs in 2024 and all the negative headlines of 2025.

The Bloomberg US Large Cap Index, excluding the magnificent seven, is flat year-to-date. It seems that we are living a normal correction after a massive bull run in the past five years, coming from expectations of persistent inflation and fewer rate cuts. That is why German and Japanese sovereign bonds, historically the beneficiaries in a risk-off scenario, are weak.

Consensus estimates of recession probability have risen to 30%, which is the same level reached in October 2024 and significantly below the 65% probability expected in April 2023. Furthermore, recession probability in the United States, according to Bloomberg, is currently the same as in the euro area. Deloitte and Coutts predict continued GDP growth in 2025, and the Federal Reserve states that the U.S. economy is expected to grow at around 1.8% this year. Understandably, many investors may be concerned about the headlines and believe that these estimates will be downgraded. However, if we look at leading indicators, the vast majority point to expansion.

The Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI), which measures U.S. economic activity and inflationary pressures, rose to +0.18 in February 2025, up from -0.08 in January, which indicates that economic activity is higher than its historical trend. Furthermore, the S&P Global U.S. Composite PMI, which measures private sector activity across manufacturing and services, signalled expansion and rose to 53.5 in March 2025, up from February’s 51.6, the strongest growth since December 2024. Not all is positive, because the Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell sharply in March 2025, dropping to 92.9, its lowest level in over four years, but far away from the levels seen in previous severe downturns, 87.1 during the pandemic and 26.9 in the 2008 crisis.

Job creation remains strong, and the U.S. March nonfarm payrolls are expected to increase by 133,000, with Bloomberg Economics increasing the estimate to 200,000. Furthermore, 2025 should bring a year of average real wage growth.

What are the main concerns from investors? Cutting spending and tariffs. However, reducing government spending is essential to reduce inflation and slash the deficit. In 2024, government spending rose by 10%, a completely abnormal figure that elevated the federal deficit to almost $2 trillion, leaving the U.S. economy with the worst GDP growth adjusted for debt accumulation since the 1930s. This unsustainable spending and indebtedness path was leading America to a debt and inflation crisis. Inflation was caused by elevated government spending leading to exceedingly high money supply growth and destruction of the purchasing power of the US dollar. The MIT concluded that federal spending was responsible for the 2022 spike in inflation and subsequent increases in government outlays and money supply growth perpetuated the inflationary pressures and created an unsustainable debt problem, with interest expenses rising to close to $1 trillion. With this trend, the US debt to GDP would rise from an alarming current 122.3% to 156% by 2055, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Thus, cutting government spending is essential to reduce inflation and avoid a debt crisis. A slowdown of GDP growth coming from a reduction in government spending is not a negative but a signal of strengthening of the productive economy.

Tariffs are a global concern. 

However, most investors seemed to be blissfully unaware of the enormous trade barriers and tariffs implemented by the European Union or China in recent years. Market participants seemed perfectly happy with rising tariffs and trade barriers against the United States from other nations. In the Trade Barrier Index, India, Russia, South Africa, Brazil and China appear as the worst nations in terms of barriers to trade. Furthermore, the European Union and China impose higher tariffs against the United States than the other way round, according to ING and Bank of America. Furthermore, markets reached all-time highs with Biden maintaining and increasing some of the tariffs that existed when he took office.

Tariffs do not cause inflation, as they do not generate an increase in the quantity of currency or the velocity of money. Tariffs are a tool to level the playing field and address the excessive trade deficit of the United States, which is not caused by competitive and open market means but due to all the barriers lifted against U.S. exporters in other nations. Many countries seem to have a view of free trade that means being able to sell as much as they want in the United States while, at the same time, placing increasingly tough trade barriers against U.S. exporters, including tariffs, legal limitations, and regulatory and fiscal burdens. The U.S. trade deficit has tripled from $43 billion in March 2020 to $131 billion in January 2025.

Markets may be spooked by tariffs, spending cuts and inflation concerns because those may mean less money supply and fewer rate cuts. However, tariffs are a negotiation tool aimed at improving the trade balance. Eliminating barriers and negotiating better terms is positive for all markets. Furthermore, the history of trade negotiations and the use of tariffs have proven to have a much smaller impact on the United States economy than initially feared. The 2016-2019 period also proves it. Furthermore, the United States economy is significantly more dynamic and powerful than many believe. Supply-side spending cuts and debt reduction, tax cuts and balancing trade are not negatives for the economy. They are all essential tools to recover real wages, financial strength, and a thriving productive sector.

Short-term pain for long-term gain.

Novo Nordisk A/S shares are on track for their steepest monthly decline since the Dot-Com bust as setbacks pile up for the Danish drugmaker. Weaker-than-expected demand for Wegovy and Ozempic, disappointing mid-stage trial results for its weight-loss pill monlunabant, and poor data from another experimental shot, CagriSema, have heavily weighed on Novo share price since last June. Adding to the pressure is a broader downturn in biotech, fueled partly by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s leadership at Health and Human Services to reform the captured federal agency.

Shares in Copenhagen are on track to close down around 27% for the month—marking their worst monthly performance since June 2002, during the aftermath of the Dot-Com bust.

Shares have been nearly halved (-54%) since peaking at around 1,000 Danish kroner in June 2024. 

Adding context to the softening demand for obesity drugs, Morgan Stanley analyst Thibault Boutherin recently noted, “Wegovy US prescriptions data track below consensus expectations and guidance, with Eli Lilly winning share and Novo total prescriptions and starting dose prescriptions flat.” 

Janus Henderson analyst Luyi Guo told clients, “There have been a lot of little hits to confidence,” adding, “I definitely don’t think that Novo is a disaster like how the stock has behaved. But people have started to question its pre-eminent growth story.” 

On Monday, Barclays analyst Emily Field lowered her US Wegovy and Ozempic sales forecast, telling clients: “Scripts did not grow to the extent we needed them to meet our forecasts.” 

Bloomberg data shows that Wall Street analysts are mostly bullish, with about 70% “Buys,” 8.8% “Sells,” and 20.6% “Holds” on Novo shares. 

Meanwhile, Goldman’s GLP-1 Winner Basket has tumbled over the last year, down about 25%, reflecting the deflating obesity drug bubble and RFK Jr. at HHS. GLP-1 Loser Basket averages +10%. 

It certainly sounds like Novo super bull, Goldman’s James Quigley, is continuing to cover the stock…

After plunging 50%, the question now is when Novo becomes a buying opportunity. It’s definitely one to watch.

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

• Some areas in the Permian have hit geological limits while others, yet to be drilled, are not expected to be as prolific as the prime Tier 1 acreage.

• Despite record U.S. crude oil production, limits to growth have started to emerge.

• In the Permian, the gas-to-oil ratio (GOR) has steadily risen from 34% of total production in 2014 to 40% in 2024.

After more than a decade of relentless drilling in the top U.S. oil-producing basin, the Permian, some areas have hit geological limits while others, yet to be drilled, are not expected to be as prolific as the prime Tier 1 acreage that producers have started to exhaust.

Top executives at major shale firms have already expressed opinions that Permian oil production could hit its peak as early as the end of this decade.

To be sure, crude oil output in the top basin continues to rise, but growth has slowed since 2022—not only because producers restrain capex and don’t drill themselves into oblivion.

Higher gas-to-oil ratio and water-to-oil ratio in the Permian suggest that some formations in the basin are reaching geological constraints, and more drilling isn’t necessarily proportionate to the oil volumes produced.

The Permian still leads U.S. oil production growth and will do so in the coming years, forecasters including the Energy Information Administration (EIA) say.

Total U.S. crude oil production is expected to average 13.61 million bpd this year, rising to 13.76 million bpd next year, according to the EIA’s latest Short-Term Energy Outlook. 

Despite record U.S. crude oil production, limits to the growth have started to emerge, executives acknowledge.

Vicki Hollub, the chief executive of Occidental Petroleum, said at the CERAWeek conference early this month, “We think that between 2027 and 2030 it’s likely that the U.S. will see peak production, and after that some decline.”

Ryan Lance, CEO at ConocoPhillips, expects U.S. oil production to plateau this decade and remain flat for an undefined period of time after 2030.

“It’s going to be a slow decline beyond that because there’s a lot of resource” left to drill, Lance told the CERAWeek conference.

However, what’s left to drill may not be as oil-yielding as the best Permian locations, which were the first to be tapped by drillers.

Production of associated natural gas from the Permian, the Eagle Ford, and the Bakken oil wells has surged over the past decade, the EIA says.

In the Permian, the gas-to-oil ratio (GOR) has steadily risen from 34% of total production in 2014 to 40% in 2024.

Pressure within the reservoir declines as more oil is brought to the surface, which allows more natural gas to be released from the geologic formation. The pressure will also decrease as more wells are concentrated within an area, the EIA says.

Another ratio is even more suggestive of the Permian oil wells and the operating costs for drilling wells—produced water.

The water-to-oil ratio in the Permian is much higher than in other basins. On average, four barrels of water are produced for each barrel of oil, according to data from oilfield water analytics firm B3 Insight cited by Reuters.

While the Permian crude production is set to exceed 6.5 million bpd in 2025, up from more than 6 million bpd in 2024, the basin “is simultaneously generating an unprecedented volume of produced water—a costly and complex byproduct of hydrocarbon extraction,” B3 Insight said this week.

Crude-focused wells in the Permian account for the vast majority of the produced water generated in the leading U.S. shale plays, analysts at RBN Energy said last year.

The higher produced water ratio will ultimately drive costs for oil producers higher, according to Shannon Flowers, director of crude and water marketing at Coterra Energy.

“There are only so many places to drill, inject and frac, and as that goes down, you still have to find a home for the rest of your produced water,” Flowers told Reuters.

Higher costs to dispose of, reuse, or recycle produced water isn’t good news for U.S. oil producers who are already concerned with the U.S. Administration’s preference of a $50 a barrel oil price.

“There cannot be “U.S. energy dominance” and $50 per barrel oil; those two statements are contradictory. At $50-per-barrel oil, we will see U.S. oil production start to decline immediately and likely significantly (1 million barrels per day plus within a couple quarters),” an executive at an exploration and production firm wrote in comments to the Dallas Fed Energy Survey for the first quarter of 2025.

“The U.S. oil cost curve is in a different place than it was five years ago; $70 per barrel is the new $50 per barrel,” the executive noted.

Authored by Jonathan Turley via jonathanturley.org,

There is a major story developing on Capitol Hill after House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer, R-Ky, revealed that a long-withheld report from the Biden Administration directly contradicted the claims of climate change used to limit increased U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The suggestion is that this was an knowing effort to cap carbon admissions rather than carbon emissions.

The impact that new U.S. LNG exports have on the environment and the economy was reviewed by U.S. Energy Department scientists and completed by September 2023. It appears that neither President Biden nor Secretary Jennifer Granholm liked the science or the conclusions. Rather than “follow the science,” they buried the report while allegedly making claims directly refuted by their own experts.

The report was finished while Biden was still running for reelection and would have likely enraged environmentalists. The draft study, “Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports,” found that, under all modeled scenarios, an increase in U.S. LNG exports and natural gas production would not change global or U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It further found that it would not increase energy prices for consumers.

Biden and Granholm reportedly buried the report and then announced a pause on all new U.S. LNG export terminals in January 2024, citing the danger to environmental and economic impacts.

Comer’s office told Fox News Digital that DOE repeatedly declined to provide this study to the House Oversight Committee or comply with other requests for information.

What is most concerning is that our LNG exports help reduce the dependence on Russia and would have decreased the revenues to that country to support its war in Ukraine. However, critics charge that Biden ignored the national security and economic benefits. Supporters note that we still exported a massive amount of LNG.

When the U.S. ramped up exports to Europe, progressive Democrats like Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., went ballistic. This appears to have worked in shelving the study while slowing demands for further increases.

The Biden Administration later released data in December 2024 suggesting that a rise in exports could cause consumer prices to rise by as much as 30%.

There are obviously two sides to this debate. The problem is that it seems that only one side was allowed to be publicly presented by the delay in the release of the study.

* * *

You can support ZeroHedge with the purchase of a high-quality, very sharp, durable ZeroHedge Multitool.

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Presidential loser Hillary Clinton, who was found to have used a personal email address for government communications, is definitely the last person who should be commenting on the leaked Signal group chat between Trump officials, but she just couldn’t keep her trap shut.

As we highlighted, the story was a nothing burger that Democrats desperately tried to jump on unsurprisingly given that they have absolutely nothing else going for them.

But the most hilarious development to come out of this is Hillary mounting her high horse and declaring how sacred national security materials are.

Clinton had the audacity to splurge her mind matter all over The New York Times opinion page, shamelessly proclaiming “It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity.”

It’s not the hypocrisy that bothers me; it’s the stupidity. https://t.co/mfGQvtkHxj

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 28, 2025

X comments are closed…obviously.

Hillary sardonically blathers “We’re all shocked — shocked! — that President Trump and his team don’t actually care about protecting classified information or federal record retention laws.”

She adds, “But we knew that already. What’s much worse is that top Trump administration officials put our troops in jeopardy by sharing military plans on a commercial messaging app and unwittingly invited a journalist into the chat. That’s dangerous. And it’s just dumb.”

First of all, there were no “military plans,” as Pete Hegseth has pointed out. Democrats are pathetically clutching at straws.

Secondly, this is coming from the woman who used her own email server to share classified communications.

This is the bleach bit lady, who when asked by reporters if she had indeed wiped all her emails to get rid of the evidence, sarcastically responded “Like with a cloth?”

Remember when Hillary Clinton was caught with over 31,000 government emails on an illegal private server?

And when she was asked if she deleted the evidence, she joked “what like with a cloth or something?”

No FBI raid on her house & no DOJ indictment

pic.twitter.com/ESQYfrK250

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) June 9, 2023

Hillary Clinton weighing in on “Signalgate?”

Fmr. CIA Analyst @TPASarah thinks that’s pretty rich.

The difference is… pic.twitter.com/AGPuXL9tto

— Chanel Rion OAN (@ChanelRion) March 30, 2025

And she’s talking about “hypocrisy.”

Hillary Clinton just published an op-ed in the NYT slamming Trump

Her opening salvo is about the Signal debacle

This is coming from the woman that insisted on using her own private email server which was hacked

Immediate hypocrisy, as always pic.twitter.com/BhNkQd82rF

— Shaun Maguire (@shaunmmaguire) March 29, 2025

Yeah, maybe you should sit this one out Hilary. Sit right at the end of a long long table and shut all the way the hell up.

Crooked Hillary had 22 top secret emails on her Gmail account alone. https://t.co/U7Pm8TjhA5

— House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority (@HouseForeignGOP) March 29, 2025

Crooked Hillary had 22 top secret emails on her Gmail account alone. https://t.co/U7Pm8TjhA5

— House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority (@HouseForeignGOP) March 29, 2025

Crooked Hillary had 22 top secret emails on her Gmail account alone. https://t.co/U7Pm8TjhA5

— House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority (@HouseForeignGOP) March 29, 2025

Crooked Hillary had 22 top secret emails on her Gmail account alone. https://t.co/U7Pm8TjhA5

— House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority (@HouseForeignGOP) March 29, 2025

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Ahead of Tuesday’s pivotal election in Wisconsin—which will determine whether conservatives or liberals control the state’s Supreme Court—Elon Musk’s America PAC hosted a town hall to rally support for conservative candidate Brad Schimel. The event covered several topics, including an update on DOGE-related efforts in the corrupt DC Swamp.

Forty-two minutes into the online town hall—streamed on X and other social media platforms—Musk welcomed Antonio Gracias, founder and CEO of the Chicago-based growth equity firm Valor Equity Partners. Gracias has been leading DOGE efforts to uncover fraud and waste in Social Security. 

Musk told the audience with Gracias on stage that DOGE found “20 million dead people marked as alive… Social Security database, this is too crazy, and then you’ll notice there’s a strange trend here.”

At that moment, Musk and Gracias turned their backs to the audience to explain a graph projected on the wall titled “New Non-Citizen Social Security Numbers Issued. “

Gracias told the audience, “We started at the top of the system—mapping the whole system of Social Security to understand where all the fraud was—and there were a lot of great people there who showed us, um, really a lot of waste, and so that came with a big list of stuff. But this is what jumped out at us. When we saw these numbers … we were like, what is this? In 2021, you see 270,000 people go all the way to 2.1 million in 2024. These are non-citizens that are getting Social Security numbers.” 

Musk said this chart “was mind-blowing …” 

Gracias followed that up with: “This literally blew us away. Like we went there to find fraud, and we found this by accident – and this isn’t political, by the way – my parents are immigrants – uh yeah, this country has been great to us. My brothers and sister were all born in Spain. I’m pro legal immigration. This is not political. This is about America and the future of America, and there are a lot of good people in the system who pointed us in this direction. I want to honor them right now who work in the government today, who took risks to show us these numbers and tell us what’s going on. I want to stop for a minute. I want to honor those people today – very good people. I have been from DC to Social Security offices and to the border to track this down, and very good people have helped us along the way. I want to thank them.”

He explained, “This number – what is when you come in the country if you’re an illegal, uh there’s a couple ways come in – you can go through a Port of Entry and you can tell them you’re afraid and you’ll get an asylum case and you’ll get an interview then you get in – that’s one way to do it. Another way to do it is to go to the border – literally, this happened. I talked to the border patrol myself.  Elon was there too. I went to Laredo, and you walked up to a border portal officer and told them you wanted to come. They have a couple of choices. They could charge you with a misdemeanor or a felony under 1325 or they can make an administrative offense like a parking ticket basically, they were told to do that make an administrative offense under the last Administration and then you go walk across the border they uh do what’s called a release from your own recognizance and they give you an NTA (notice to appear) which to appear at a judge the weight times on judges are like average six years -look at Grok-you’ll see it on immigration judges – there’s only 700 of them this is 5.5 million people.” 

“Next, once you’re in the country and you got asylum through one of these pathways we mapped the whole thing out – you can apply for a work document – you file a 765 – it’s the work form – you get this form called the 766 – that’s the authorization – and then Social Security Administration automatically sends you in the mail your social security number – no interview no ID,” Gracias explained further. 

Musk chimed in: “Just reiterating, sometimes people think that Biden was asleep at the switch. But this was a massive large-scale program to import as many illegals as possible ultimately to change the entire voting map of the United States and disenfranchise the American people and make it a permanent deep blue one-party state, from which there would be no escape.” 

Gracias emphasized that “defaults in the system from Social Security to all of the benefit programs have been set to Max inclusion – max pay – for these people and Minimum Collection – that’s what’s happening. We found that 1.3 million of them are already on Medicaid. And the 5 million of them on benefit programs.” 

“What was really disturbing us was why. We’re asking ourselves why, and so we actually just took a sample and looked at voter registration records and we found people here registered to vote in this population – yes – and we found some by sampling some that did vote. And we have referred them to prosecution at the homeland security investigation,” Gracias said, adding, “Truly disturbing thing to me and the darkest thing about this to me uh the voter fraud is terrible but the human tragedy this created is extraordinary. Americans need to know – that’s why I’m here – that human traffickers made 13 to 15 billion dollar off of this – that’s the money that’s going around the world moving people around the world to our borders because of these incentives.” 

Elon Musk exposes massive social security fraud with non citizens receiving a social security number

Why would anyone be against eliminating fraud like this in government? pic.twitter.com/dSwUTbcbQg

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) March 31, 2025

Last month, Musk summed up why the Democratic Party and corrupt NGOs, along with far-left globalist billionaires, facilitated the illegal alien invasion:

“The REAL reason so many Democrats are upset about entitlements (social security, medical, etc) fraud investigations is that they are using your taxpayer money as handouts to attract and retain ILLEGAL immigrants. Their future voters.” 

The REAL reason so many Democrats are upset about entitlements (social security, medical, etc) fraud investigations is that they are using your taxpayer money as handouts to attract and retain ILLEGAL immigrants. Their future voters.

That’s what it’s all about.

Truth.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2025

At the same time, the Democratic Party and their globalist billionaire allies prioritized their desire for more power over the nation, which triggered alarming national security and biosecurity threats.

In response to the Democratic Party’s illegal alien invasion scheme, shadowy Marxist NGOs aligned with the woke party have launched firebombing attacks against Elon Musk’s Tesla showrooms, charging stations, and vehicles across the country—all in retaliation for DOGE exposing this massive fraud.

Via Real InvestmentAdvice.com,

It wasn’t that long ago that used car prices were soaring as the production of new cars was crimped due to Covid-related supply line shortages. 

Since then, used car prices have stabilized as the supply lines have healed. 

However, like many goods, prices haven’t retreated to pre-pandemic levels. 

As we wrote in yesterday’s Commentary, the new 25% tariff on cars assembled outside the US could raise new car prices. 

JP Morgan thinks the impact could be 10% or more if the tariffs are fully passed on to consumers. 

Thus, those consumers unable or unwilling to pay a higher price may resort to purchasing a used car. 

Economists call this the substitution effect.

The market seems to think the tariffs will benefit used car suppliers. Per Bloomberg:

As of midday Thursday, shares of used-vehicle dealers CarMax Inc. and Carvana Co. were each modestly higher, while rental-car company Hertz Global Holdings Inc. soared as much as 27% to its best intraday gain in more than three years. GM, Ford, and Stellantis all fell.

While the supply lines are back to normal, the used car market is still short on supply. 

If demand for lower-end new models declines, as many of them are made outside of the US, used cars will likely be more in demand. 

Thus, their prices are likely to rise. 

Given the on-again, off-again nature of tariff announcements and actions, the net impact on new and used auto prices is unclear at this time.

Aston Martin shares in London soared as much as 13% after the British sports car maker announced it would raise at least £125 million ($162 million) through a share sale to Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll’s investment vehicle and by selling a minority stake in its Formula One racing team.

Bloomberg reported that Stroll’s Yew Tree Consortium plans to increase its stake in the struggling British luxury sports car maker to 33% from about 27.7%. The deal will provide Aston Martin with about £52.5 million. The new shares were priced at 70 pence apiece to Friday’s closing price. 

Aston Martin CEO Adrian Hallmark released a statement stating, “This renewed support from Lawrence and his Yew Tree Consortium partners underlines their immense confidence in our team and the future of the Company.” 

“By strengthening the balance sheet, this investment provides additional headroom to support our future product innovation and business transformation activities, which combined, will accelerate our progress into being a sustainably profitable company,” Hallmark added.

Aston Martin also plans to sell a minority stake in the Formula One team that bears its name and raise an additional £74 million. The buyer was not disclosed. Stroll controls the racing team independently. 

The latest financial outlook from the sports car maker signaled lower volume guidance for 2025, citing trade wars and tariffs. The company now expects “modest growth,” down from its previous target of mid-single-digit percentage growth. CEO Adrian Hallmark had already lowered the profit target for 2025 and slashed 170 jobs—about 5% of the workforce. 

Under British takeover rules, Stroll’s Yew Tree Consortium would be required to bid for all of Aston Martin. However, AFP News noted, “Yew is asking for this to be waived.” 

“Exemptions have been granted in the past, yet it feels like a takeover would be a better outcome as it would mean the car company would be free to pursue a turnaround strategy out of the public spotlight,” AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould wrote in a note. 

Aston Martin has turned to investors multiple times, but with repeated profit warnings, a struggling race team, and now the impact of trade wars, the company has yet to initiate a meaningful turnaround strategy.