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One other note. We've been expanding the power of the executive office since Teddy Roosevelt. There has not been a president in my memory who has worked to minimize any of those gains. It's taken over 100 years to get us here. This fascist, racist, wanna-be-billionaire will be using every slice of advantage all these presidents gave themselves and never rescinded when the emergency they were facing passed. You see this problem every day in business and politics. Sometimes it just takes a long time to play out. These will be interesting times to read about in history but not so interesting to live through.
It's an interesting proposition. These young people spend 8+ years in school. Many have $200k+ in debt and they have to go to work as slaves for a few years so they can then take one of the most grueling exams you can imagine. If they don't pass, they can continue as a resident until they're able to take the exam again or they can go practice in a country that will accept them as a medical doctor without US certification. The most famous case I know about was in the specialty in which I led software exam development during the last 7 years before I retired. There was a man who held the record. He was in his 70s and continued to re-exam as soon as he could since his 20s. Some of the smartest young doctors from around the world come here because they know their residency training will set them and their families up for life. A really smart, dedicated doctor does not fail the certification exam.
Once in residency, everyone is a medical doctor but without serving your time in residency to get, what is by then, 6 or 7 years of hands on training, you're not eligible to take the certification exam. Then, if after all of that education and training you don't pass the exam, you can't practice in the US unless your doctor has one of the substandard certifications. But that's a much longer post for another day.
On May 27, the Trump administration suspended new interview appointments for foreign nationals applying for J-1 visas used by most medical residents arriving from overseas.
Now some of those hospitals are racing to prevent staffing shortages. - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/18/health/medical-residents-travel-ban.html
“If international medical graduates can’t start their medical residencies on time on July 1, the ramifications are so far-reaching that it is really unconscionable,” said Kimberly Pierce Burke, executive director of the Alliance of Independent Academic Medical Centers.
Senior residents leave hospitals in June and go on to start their careers, she noted. Hospitals rely on new residents to replenish their ranks. “If they don’t come on July 1, that leaves a hole in the patient care team,” Ms. Burke said. “Who’s going to pick up the slack?”
New doctors from other countries account for one in six medical residents and specializing fellows at U.S. teaching hospitals. In 2024, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates sponsored more than 15,500 doctors from over 150 countries to fill residency or fellowship training spots at 770 hospitals.
Residents are new medical school graduates who complete their training by working for several years under the supervision of more experienced doctors, gaining experience and acquiring the skills needed for various specialties. They work up to 80 hours a week on average, earning relatively low salaries.
Residents are the foot soldiers of hospitals, critical to their operations, said Dr. Douglas DeLong, a semiretired physician in upstate New York who has worked in academic training programs.
“If you’re a patient in a hospital, the resident is the first doctor you see in the morning,” Dr. DeLong said.
Trump's the only one who could accomplish this much disruption of our American economy.
DJT after the Fed lowers rates 25bp: I don't know, maybe he finally heard me. Hey, Mr. Too Late, did you finally hear me? I think maybe he did. Maybe he's not so stupid. Of course he'll have to lower rates much more. Much more than this. I would lower rates 2%. I'd do that today, I know the economy and the economy would be better than it's ever been before. So much better. A beautiful economy.
Thanks Elroy. I heard that another neighbor came out and started live streaming the abduction. People are learning what to say to them and how to make them as uncomfortable as possible without breaking the law. When they tried to stop him "filming" he warned the lead agent that he was live streaming to everywhere in the world, the phone was just a tool, not image storage. "Don't let your illegal act become a criminal act." They completed the abduction and sped off in an unmarked grey van and what appeared to be a personal truck. There's a small group of people getting together here to start training people how to do this in a way that will not get them hurt or arrested.
As of this morning both our friend's state and federal representative are in the loop, both have been briefed and are doing what they can to help his lawyer and another lawyer who volunteered to work on the case yesterday. Right now we're trying to get him a bail hearing as quickly as possible so he can come home and go back to work while this ridiculous case works it's way through the court system.
ICE is the equivalent of the Nazi Brownshirts that were Hitler's paramilitary organization and intimidated anyone who opposed him. The difference is that ICE is already part of US law enforcement. We've done most of Trump's work for him. We should be watching for the rise of Trump's version of the SS. There is a reason he pardoned all the January 6 insurrectionists. They're 100% Aryan Nation. If that gets a foothold here, live streaming will likely get you killed on the spot.
Jerome Powell was Trump's nominee to the Fed Chair position during his first term, which Trump claims was a horrible mistake forced on him by some very bad people.
"So we have a stupid person, frankly, at the Fed, he probably won’t cut today. Europe had 10 cuts, and we had none.
And I guess he’s a political guy. I don’t know.
He’s a political guy who’s not a smart person, but he’s costing the country a fortune.
Maybe I should go to the Fed. Am I allowed to appoint myself, Doug? I don’t know.
Am I allowed to appoint myself at the Fed? I do a much better job than these people.” Donald Trump told reporters today.
So anyway, we should be two points lower. It would be nice to be two and a half points lower.
And by the way, if he's worried about inflation, that's okay. I understand that. I don't think there's going to be any.
So far, there hasn't. But now we have a man that just refuses to lower the Fed rate, just refuses to do it.
And he's not a smart person. I don't even think he's that political.
I think Powell hates me, but that's okay. You know, he should."
The number of Trump's deportations per month is still less than the number President Barrack Obama deported, and even lower than the number of Joe Biden's deportations?
Instead of deporting convicted criminals at the end of their prison sentences and others whose asylum claims had been denied, Trump has redirected Homeland Security's efforts to cumbersome press photo event0 with embedded reporters.
Trump is deporting way fewer people than Obama did. Why? - https://www.vox.com/politics/416901/trump-mass-deportation-obama-border-raids-ice
President Donald Trump promised his supporters “the largest deportation program in American history” — but he’s nowhere close.
That distinction belongs to an early 20th-century program that likely saw 2 million people deported. When looking at more recent times, it’s President Barack Obama — once dubbed by immigrant advocates “the deporter in chief” — who holds the 21st-century deportation record. His administration kicked out 438,421 people in 2013. No president since has come close to equaling that record, including Trump during his first term.
The real reason Trump is suddenly ordering immigration raids
The political atmosphere that made the mass deportations of the 1900s possible is long gone. Similarly, Trump is likely to find it all but impossible to approach his goal of deporting “millions and millions” by borrowing from Obama’s playbook.
In fact, actions taken by Obama are part of why Trump’s ambitions have been stymied. If Trump truly wants to set a new record, he’ll need to more than double the current pace of deportations. And that will take a strategy that radically departs from those that have come before.
How Obama deported so many people
Obama’s immigration enforcement strategy was two-pronged: increasing penalties for unauthorized crossings at the southern border and deputizing local law enforcement to target immigrants with criminal records inside the US. The former increased the number of people who faced official removal proceedings and deterred repeat border crossers. And the latter allowed ICE to have its ear to the ground in cities throughout the country.
Before Obama, unauthorized border crossers were typically allowed to voluntarily return to Mexico, without undergoing an official process or being subjected to any penalties. That meant that many attempted to recross the border, knowing that they would not face repercussions for doing so.
The Obama administration started subjecting a greater proportion of them to formal deportation proceedings, utilizing an expanded federal immigration enforcement workforce that had grown from 12,700 in 2003 to 22,000 in 2008 with an influx of congressional funding. That drove up the deportation numbers and also barred unauthorized crossers from reentering the US for another 10 years. If they tried to reenter anyway, they could be permanently barred.
Many proved unwilling to take that risk, with the share of unauthorized crossers making multiple attempts to cross the border coming down sharply, from 29 percent in fiscal year 2007 to 14 percent in fiscal year 2014.
Obama also utilized tools including agreements with local law enforcement agencies that allowed them to conduct immigration enforcement and a program known as “Secure Communities” to deport undocumented immigrants inside the US, prioritizing those with criminal records.
By the time Obama took office in 2009, about 70 of these 287(g) agreements had been signed. They allowed local law enforcement to receive training from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and issue immigration detainers, effectively deputizing them.
Through Secure Communities, local law enforcement shared fingerprints of people booked into local jails with federal immigration authorities, which would determine whether they were deportable. ICE could then ask local law enforcement to hold that person for up to 48 hours; agents would pick them up and transfer them to immigration detention.
Initially effective at increasing deportations, the Secure Communities program was short-lived. It faced blowback from primarily liberal jurisdictions, driving a revival of the movement to offer sanctuary to undocumented immigrants in the 2010s.
The concern among progressives was that it would reduce trust in law enforcement among immigrant communities and make everyone less safe because fewer people would report crimes. It also led to the deportation of people who had only committed minor offenses or had no criminal convictions.
In 2014, Obama rescinded the program in response. He replaced it with another program that focused only on deporting immigrants who had committed serious offenses. As a result, the number of deportations fell to about 414,000 that year and never resurged to their 2013 peak.
Trump may struggle to replicate Obama’s deportation strategy
Trump might struggle to ramp up deportations along the border, as Obama did, simply because significantly fewer people are coming. In March, border apprehensions fell to 7,181, a 95 percent decrease from March 2024.
Trump would also likely face great opposition to a revived Secure Communities program.
The opposition in liberal enclaves — where many undocumented immigrants reside — to cooperating with federal immigration authorities has only hardened since the Obama era. In response, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan has gone as far as threatening Democratic officials with arrest for shielding immigrants from deportation.
But for now, Democrats are holding their ground.
“I will stand in the way of Tom Homan going after people who don’t deserve to be frightened in their communities,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a congressional hearing Thursday, in comments emblematic of the liberal position.
With these avenues cut off, Trump has attempted other tactics. He’s launched workplace immigration raids across California, spurring mass protests in Los Angeles. He’s mobilized federal resources from the National Guard to the IRS to identify and arrest undocumented immigrants. He’s urged half a million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to self-deport.
None of that has been enough to match Obama’s pace of deportations so far, something that has reportedly frustrated Trump. However, deportations did increase to 17,200 in April, surpassing the number of deportations during the same period last year under the Biden administration.
It’s not clear whether Trump can maintain that momentum. For one, he suggested in a recent post on Truth Social that he’s now torn about deporting farm workers and hotel workers after speaking with industry leaders who said that his policies were “taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.” In the same post, he vowed that “changes are coming,” without elaborating on what they might look like.
At the same time, however, Trump is pushing for a spending bill now under consideration in the US Senate. It provides $155 billion in new immigration enforcement funding — more than five times the amount of current funding. While even some Republicans say that increase is too large, he may soon have considerably greater resources to carry out his vision for mass deportations if the bill passes.
The criminal lord's Gestapo is too chicken shit to go into the gang areas of cities. Plenty of real criminal illegals to get there, but no way they have the guts or the training. And they won't go after the corp donors, who have by far the amount of easy takes there. No, all they can do is easy pickings and things that make their political theater and propaganda campaigns. They are trying to get their numbers in the easy showtime category, just won't ever be able to do that, and getting more desperate and frustrated. So we can look forward to just more Gestapo showtime reruns.
And the arrests were of people who were paroled to pursue proceedings. So they weren’t undocumented. They just harassed all those people. That’s it. I don’t even know what to call that.
— Yael Schacher (@yaelschacher.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T01:17:25.692Z
George, a capo with "T-Party Senior-Hunters with Guns" complained yesterday about the remaining arbitrary government restrictions which still need to be lifted..
After I bag my monthly limit shooting 7 elderly Americans, I can no longer indulge in one of the few pleasures I have left in life until the first of the next month.
And this isn't right, especially when these useless eaters continue to draw costly government benefits which create large government deficits.
This liberal "rule of law" thing has to be repealed in all aspects of American life so we can breath free.
I'm really sorry to hear about your friend, tenant and neighbor being arrested by ICE, in spite of being here in the US legally. This has to stop.
The US, now operating without the rule of law, is little different from Zimbabwe, Iran, or any other nightmarish dictatorship.
Today I could have made a few good trades as long as I was willing to raise my entry using RSI, in the 40.s. I will follow this idea further and check it in detail tomorrow while the market is closed.
The Michigan consumer sentiment report tells you everything you need to know about the utter lack of success of the Trump administration. Straight into the golden toilet. The Fed is going to speak at 2 Eastern today. Because consumers are unhappy, the economy is very likely to follow. Remember the Fed only has two jobs; keep inflation and unemployment low. My bet is that they're much more concerned about the economy faltering again this quarter than they are concerned about either inflation or employment. If that's true, they may lower rates or at least hint that rates are coming down. If that happens, this is not the market top even though it looks to me like it should be. There are good reasons I'm not investing or trading this market.
Don't forget Keynes saying: The markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent
Nothing ever changes. These criminals can crime all day every day and we accept it as business as usual. Here today in Annapolis we had an all around difficult day as ICE was focused on our immigrant population. They were all over town this morning. One of our neighbors and friend was abducted, illegally this morning. He's a refuge from El Salvador. Been here for 20 some years. Has a family, has his own business, pays taxes, works hard, is in the amnesty program, follows all those rules, goes to St. Mary's church and supports the local schools. Exactly the sort of person you want as a neighbor. What really hurts personally is that those A*holes hid behind bushes in the yard of my rental home waiting for him to come out to his truck for work in the morning. He's more fortunate than most of the immigrants picked up today as he has a deep and faithful group that will not stand for this atrocity. I know these Nazis don't care but they have steeled another large group of citizens against them.
Always appreciate your professional input in this area Elroy, thanks.
The difference being serving your country and taking advantage of your country.
This year so far, China’s trade surplus with the world is nearly $500 billion — a more than a 40 percent increase from the same period last year.
As President Trump’s tariffs close off the U.S. market, Chinese goods are flooding countries from Southeast Asia to Europe to Latin America.
“China has loads of things that it needs to export, and whether or not the U.S. puts tariffs on China, it’s pretty much impossible to stop the shifts in flows,” said Leah Fahy, a China economist at Capital Economics.
To soften the blow of a real estate crisis that reduced the wealth of millions of households, Beijing has for several years been shoveling money into its manufacturing sectors, which are making far more things than there is demand for at home.
China’s global market share for all categories of goods has risen sharply, according to an analysis by Ms. Fahy. This will continue despite the tariffs because Beijing is unlikely to change the course of its export-oriented policies.
Some nations have been able to reship some Chinese goods by exporting them to the United States. But if they cannot negotiate the tariffs much lower, homegrown companies in countries facing severe U.S. tariffs in Southeast Asia and elsewhere could be crushed by competition from Chinese companies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/business/tariffs-china-exports.html
Bought back NKE 3 Calls.
The two paper trades both failed today, the other three did not hit the area where I would have entered a trade.
India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani has joined the ranks of foreign developers pouring money into President Trump’s real-estate firm, as the first family ramps up dealmaking after years of aversion to mixing business with global politics.
Investors planning Trump-branded projects in Vietnam, Dubai and Saudi Arabia and elsewhere paid the Trump Organization $44.6 million in foreign licensing and development fees in 2024, up from $8.2 million in 2023 and $9.4 million in 2022, according to the president’s annual financial disclosure report.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trump-familys-new-business-partner-is-indias-richest-man-6846bcfe
While most of the money relates to previously announced deals, the disclosure report included a $10 million “development fee” from Reliance 4IR Realty Development, a unit of a company controlled by multibillionaire Mukesh Ambani, licensing the Trump name in Mumbai.
It is unclear what project Ambani has planned: his Reliance Industries
is a vast family-run conglomerate with an enormous petrochemicals business and interests in retail and telecom—and his companies have lobbied U.S. officials on tariffs, sanctions and policies about oil, lobbying reports show. Real-estate development hasn’t historically been a Reliance focus, but in recent years the conglomerate has taken on large projects including redevelopment of a more than 4,000-acre area in Mumbai.
Ambani attended Trump’s inauguration in Washington, D.C., in January, and was a guest last month at a state dinner in Doha, in which the Qatar emir hosted the U.S. president.
Taken with a set of real-estate projects announced this year in Qatar and elsewhere in India, the burst of foreign Trump deals stands as a highly visible display of the family strategy to steam ahead with expansion plans across the president’s businesses while he sits in the White House.
His growing reach spans an array of sectors—including golf, cryptocurrency and a recently announced Trump mobile phone—marking a major break from previous administrations that sought to keep the presidency separated from potential conflicts of interest. While the deals have sparked criticism from Democratic lawmakers and governance advocates, there has been little public resistance from the Republicans who control Congress.
In the first term, the Trump Organization pledged a halt to foreign dealmaking while he was in office—essentially putting a stop to any new real-estate projects from the company. Donald Trump Jr, a company executive who oversees the president’s assets with his brother, Eric Trump, said at a Qatar-based conference in May that recusal from deals didn’t stop criticism, so this time the family has lowered the self-imposed guardrails—vowing only to avoid direct deals with foreign governments.
“We said we’re going to play by the rules, but we’re not going to go so far as to stymie our business forever,” Donald Trump Jr. said.
A White House spokeswoman said the president is working to secure good “deals for the American people, not for himself,” and said there were no conflicts of interest.
Representatives of Reliance didn’t respond to requests for comment. A Trump Organization spokeswoman declined to comment on the tie-up with Ambani.
Among the concerns from critics: The nature of real-estate development—where government approvals are crucial—makes it difficult to avoid getting tangled up with foreign politics.
In Vietnam, the government accelerated approvals for a Trump project at the same time it was lobbying heavily to reduce its 46% tariff rate set by Trump. Qatari officials hosted Eric Trump for an event launching a new Trump-branded golf resort two weeks before the president visited the country for trade and investment talks. Another project in Serbia—where a fund run by the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner is planning a trio of towers—has become a rallying point for opponents of the country’s president, who has doubled down on support for the project.
The burst of payments on the president’s 2024 disclosures are likely precursors for more money set to flow when the projects are completed.
Details in the disclosures filed Friday are sparse, but the 2024 payments are similar to past upfront fees that are often part of Trump’s licensing deals in which third-party developers build and own hotels and condos branded as Trump properties. For years, such deals have been Trump’s bread and butter in real estate, allowing him to profit without plowing money into buildings. The Trump Organization typically receives a mix of set fees and a portion of sales.
The most active developer was Dar al Arkan, a Saudi company that accounted for $22 million of the foreign license fees last year for Trump-branded projects planned in Saudi Arabia, Oman and Dubai, according to the disclosure report. Other fees included $5 million from the Vietnamese developer, Hung Yen Hospitality, and $5.2 million from another Dubai developer, Damac.
Well, attacks on Iranian refineries have already happened on Saturday, leaving Iran to rely completely on imported gasoline, diesel and LP gas.
https://www.dw.com/en/iran-israel-attacks-oil-gas-energy-infrastructure-opec/a-72936222
Israeli attacks on Saturday targeted Iran's energy infrastructure, including vital oil storage sites, refineries and power stations.
Among the locations targeted was the massive South Pars gas field, which is part of the world's largest reservoir of natural gas. It's located off Iran's southern Bushehr province and is the source of most of the gas produced in Iran.
Iran shares control over the South Pars gas field with neighboring Qatar, which calls the reservoir under its control North Dome.
The attack, which forced Tehran to partially suspend production at the field, raised the prospect that a widening conflict would threaten Iran's energy production and supply.
After spending mere 12 hours at the G7 and refusing to meet with Ukraine, Trump rushed back to DC and has now demanded that Iran "surrender unconditionally", so perhaps he'll be directing the US military to occupy Iran in his ever expanding series of wars.
One of the most egregious cuts Trump has made is firing the employees at the FBI Cyber Command which has been combating hacking from Russian and Chinese sponsored extortion and theft groups.
https://progressivegrocer.com/unfi-finally-receiving-and-shipping-grocery-orders-following-cyberattack
US businesses and cities are now experiencing a new spike in extortion hacks, interrupting food shipments to stores, care at hospitals and other facilities.
Yesterday at the G7 conference Trump claimed he now has a trade agreement with the EU after signing a small deal with Keir Starmer, PM of the UK. Most merely assumed he had misspoke, but I think is confusion was real.
Trump said a lot of other nonsense including how badly the G7 has treated Vladimir Putin, reminding everyone this group used to be called the G8 when Russia was a member prior to invading Ukraine.
The loss of crude from Iran shouldn't affect the price of oil.
What would affect oil prices is any Iranian missile attacks on oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, UAE and LNG facilities in Qatar - or attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, or in the Red Sea by their clients in Yemen.
Any destruction of oil refineries and the new refineries under construction in Iran would seriously affect their economy as they already have to import gasoline and diesel from China.
Trump will of course continue to represent the interests of Russia, and even perhaps China, in order to assure his economic well-being after leaving office. It's a lot easier doing a real estate deal with a dictator rather than dealing with a democracy with layers of approval from various groups representing the interests of all citizens.
Watch your oil stocks as the crude could take a jump if Iran responds to trump's threat about evacuating Tehran.
Restless and gambling. I am waiting.
The whole market is trading like scammy pennies, so there might be some correlation to retail's mind set.
“Retail has gone full tilt, trading more aggressively than during the post-stimmy meme stonk euphoria. Pennystocks just hit a record 47.4% of total market volume.“ www.dailychartbook.com/p/702 via @dailychartbook.bsky.social
— Jesse Felder (@jessefelder.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T14:11:41.600Z
Finished doubling up in FSK, I like that 13%+ dividend.
Sold ANF 3 Calls, JD 10 and Bill also 10 Calls. I will wait for the markets to drop and buy them back as per plan.
Trump issues bizarre new rules allowing VA Doctors and other healthcare providers nationwide to refuse to treat military veterans who are Democrats or unmarried.
Medical staff are still required to treat veterans regardless of race, color, religion and sex, and all veterans remain entitled to treatment. But individual workers are now free to decline to care for patients who belong to the wrong political party or those who are unmarried.
Doctors and other medical staff can also be barred from working at VA hospitals based on their marital status, political party affiliation or union activity, documents reviewed by the Guardian show. The changes also affect chiropractors, certified nurse practitioners, optometrists, podiatrists, licensed clinical social workers and speech therapists.
In making the changes, VA officials cite the president’s 30 January executive order titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”. The primary purpose of the executive order was to strip most government protections from transgender people. The VA has since ceased providing most gender-affirming care and forbidden a long list of words, including “gender affirming” and “transgender”, from clinical settings.
In an emailed response to questions, the VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz, did not dispute that the new rules allowed doctors to refuse to treat veteran patients based on their political beliefs or that physicians could be dismissed based on their marital status or political affiliation, but said “all eligible veterans will always be welcome at VA and will always receive the benefits and services they’ve earned under the law”.
VA press secretary, Peter Kasperowicz said the rule changes are merely “a formality” to comply with Trump’s executive order.
Nothing strange about this market.
I have never seen this before: Bank of America hiked its price target on CoreWeave by 143% and...downgraded the stock $CRWV sherwood.news/markets/bank...
— Luke Kawa (@ljkawa.bsky.social) 2025-06-16T15:09:35.332Z
The heiress of $10 billion Perdue farms and the $12 billion Sheraton hotel empire wore hand-me-downs, still rides the subway, and flies economy
“If you're always going on private jets, what inkling do you have about the real world?”
Mitzi Perdue, the double-heiress of Sheraton hotels and Perdue farms, grew up wearing hand-me-downs and getting a public education. She’s quick to draw her pursestrings by flying economy, riding the subway, and living in a modest apartment—despite sitting on a fortune from two billion-dollar American businesses. The 84-year-old journalist and philanthropist says it helps her understand “the real world.”
The thought of a billionaire’s lifestyle may conjure up images of Great Gatsby mansion-buying and jet-setting at the drop of a hat. But the life of an heiress with the wealth of two billion-dollar American businesses looks a lot different.
Mitzi Perdue was born into the Sheraton hotel family, and at just the age of 26, she and her siblings inherited their father Ernest Henderson’s controlling stake of the business. The success of her family’s $12.2 billion hospitality company meant she was now sitting on a considerable nest egg.
Her fortune would only swell after marrying her late husband Frank Perdue, the “chicken king” who led America’s largest chicken-producer, Perdue Farms, which brought in over $10 billion in revenue last year. The double-heiress has the riches to retire and live a life of extravagance—but it’s in her nature to look at wealth differently.
“The Hendersons and the Perdues did not encourage extravagance,” Perdue tells Fortune. “In both families, nobody wins points for wearing designer clothes.”
The 84-year-old has access to a trust from her family’s billion-dollar business, alongside the wealth from the Perdue empire. Yet she still lives just like anybody else: taking her shoes to the cobbler instead of buying new ones, riding the subway, flying economy, and living in a modest apartment instead of a house.
Perdue has lived a double life—having access to immense privilege and money from two business empires, while holding down a regular job and living frugally.
“My apartment building I lived in for 14 years is very solidly middle-class, and I love it,” Perdue says. “If you’re always going on private jets, what inkling do you have about the real world?”
Her frugal and down-to-earth lifestyle: wearing second-hand clothes, flying economy, riding subways
Perdue was born in 1941, and as a war baby and fifth child of the Hendersons family, she grew up wearing hand-me-downs. She says she went to public school for a period of her life, later enrolling in private school and pursuing a Harvard education. When she was in her late 20’s her father died, opening up the floodgates of her inheritance. But she wasn’t enticed by the idea of throwing in the towel and lounging for the rest of her life.
“I could have just put everything in the stock market and let somebody else manage it,” Perdue says.
Interested in agriculture, Perdue soon bought land near the University of California, Davis so the college could run experiments on the agricultural area. She spent many hours a day managing the rice farm, but years later decided to become a journalist covering farming practices and mental health.
Starting in 2022, she began covering the conflict in Ukraine and sold her $1.2 million engagement ring from her late husband to benefit humanitarian efforts in the war-torn region. She’s currently working on developing an AI trauma therapist for victims in Ukraine, which has lacked the resources to keep up with demand. For all of her work trips, she always flies economy.
Perdue has also lived in an apartment building in Salisbury, Maryland, for many years, rubbing shoulders with working-class residents like nurses and police officers. She says one year’s rent in her one-bedroom flat costs just as much as what her New York City friends pay in one month.
“Several Perdue employees live in the same building,” Perdue says. “It’s nice, but no one would call it posh.”
And as a self-proclaimed “low-maintenance badass” frequently visiting New York City, she rides the subway instead of booking Ubers. Perdue also gets her shoes fixed by cobblers, rather than buying new pairs; and designer outfits are shrugged off, as she doesn’t like flashing her wealth. Her frugal philosophy is more than just skin-deep.
“I’m unaware of getting praise for wearing really expensive clothes—you get praised like heck for being an Eagle Scout, or working for Habitat for Humanity,” Perdue continues. “You get praise for serving others.”
People who have not grown up with wealth may question why a billionaire would want to live life like the rest of the population: working 9-to-5, sardining on subways instead of calling private cars. The heiress and journalist says her reasoning stems from the emptiness of taking, and the joy of giving.
“I’d sure rather have a life of a feast of unending joy versus not being able to count five happy days,” Perdue says. “If you want to be happy, think what you can do for somebody else. If you want to be miserable, think what’s owed to you.”
Mega-yachts and silk pajamas don’t fill the void for Perdue—rather, philanthropy and hard work make her feel full. A huge part of Perdue’s understanding of having wealth versus living a wealthy life came from both sides of her family. She noted that family businesses that are able to last 100 years are a rarity, but the Hendersons and Perdues were able to make it by putting their best foot forward.
“The families that last learn stewardship,” Perdue said. “They’re not there to go spend it all. They’re there to be stewards for the next generation.”
They know who they're looking for, another "mentally stable" Trump supporter.
Trump has simply weaponized the mentally ill.
Footage of the Minnesota assassin Vance Luther Boelter, a life long registered republican and "Christian" nationalist incel that hated women. He's 100% MAGA. https://t.co/OmT8oZy5u2 pic.twitter.com/sREzTNYomV
— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) June 15, 2025
Trump may need millions more soldiers and tanks to shoot all of the Americans who are unhappy with him in every city of this country.
San Diego #NoKingsProtest pic.twitter.com/U5h8jWDCnA
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) June 14, 2025
I’m devastated to learn that my friend, Minnesota Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, were killed in last night’s shooting. pic.twitter.com/LHdkPqLZkY
— Gabrielle Giffords (@GabbyGiffords) June 14, 2025
As you've so often told us, Republicans you know are so angry they're ready and even eager to use their guns and stockpiles of ammo to start shooting their friends, neighbors and and government officials who don't agree with their political views
Bringing angry and violent Hungarian politics here to America to celebrate Donald Trump's birthday.
I think you're going to come to regret this.
2 Democratic lawmakers had been shot in simultaneous attacks in their homes in MN.
If it's Boeing, I'm not going. Let's let the bean counters engineer the plane.
No one understands the perfect version of fascistic governance better than the royal family. The day they can't buy loyalty from their subjects is the last day they have control. Now that will be a crazy revolution. Of course when they're out of oil, we will have run out a long time before. Global warming or the end of cheap oil? I'm pretty sure for most of us, the end of cheap oil is going to be a big problem that solves the other problem.
I caught a short conversation between Christy and her accountant Wendy Wealth. It went something like this:
CW: I want to show my family I'm an independent thinker. I'm going to come out against Trump
WW: How would you like to do that?
CW: I'll take out ads in newspapers across the country denouncing his horrible actions. What will that cost?
WW: About $2.5MM
CW: Is that what I make in a year?!?
WW: No mam that's what you make in a day.
CW: Alright then, release the hounds. This will be such fun.
WW: If you really want to make a difference, you could hire consultants and give $100MM a month to organizations fighting the Trump regime.
CW: What would that cost me?
WW: About $20MM a year.
CW: You mean I'd be poorer?
WW: Mam, you would still have over $18B.
CW: What would they think of me at the club? Let those poors eat cake. The ads will be divine.
Oh boy. Now I'm going to have to shower after touching my iPhone..:). Slavery has never gone away it's just mostly moved away.
In the world of sales there's also FUD. DJT is the master. Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. The bad actors like DJT, will lie about everything to get what they want but even good, honest sales folks will use this to sway customers their way. Every competitor has a flaw all you need to do is study them, talk to their customers and you'll find it. What I've found in business is that almost no competitor will take the time or put in the work to find your company's flaws. The difference in business is that if you break it after claiming your the 2nd coming, you don't often get a second chance.
Bought back JD 10 Covered Calls at 21 cents were sold at 51 cents.
Bought back 3 Calls in ANF for 50% gain.
You have to think of your people first.
So far the sellers are not entering in large numbers. The last hour could be different.
I bought back THC 5 Covered Calls for a $5 gain per share, also BILL for a 60% gain for 10 Calls.
Missiles And Firewalls: Defense Stocks Surge As Israel-Iran Tensions Ignite
BENZINGA 12:55 PM ET 6/13/2025
Symbol Last Price Change
LMT 484.27down +15 (+3.1965%)
RTX 145.42up +4.44 (+3.1494%)
ESLT 462.815down +31.335 (+7.2622%)
PANW 198.0892down +0.4192 (+0.2121%)
CRWD 481.77down +0.04 (+0.0083%)
CHKP 220.83up -2.12 (-0.9509%)
QUOTES AS OF 01:22:36 PM ET 06/13/2025
In the high-stakes chess game of Middle East geopolitics, Israel's airstrikes on Iran's nuclear and drone facilities appear to have lit a fuse under defense and cybersecurity stocks.
As Tehran rattles sabers and markets quiver, the S&P 500 futures dipped 1.1% post-strikes. Savvy investors are, however, eyeing a fortress of opportunity in companies that thrive when tensions soar.
Defense plays such as Lockheed Martin Corp(LMT) stock was up over 6.26% during day trading by Friday noon, Rtx Corp(RTX) (aka Raytheon Technologies) was up almost 3% and Elbit Systems Ltd(ESLT) was up 7.43%.
Read Also: Lockheed Martin(LMT) Stock Surges As Middle East Tensions Fuel Defense Sector Rally
Missile Defense: The New Gold Rush
Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Raytheon Technologies are stealing the spotlight, with their missile defense systems, like Israel's Arrow, poised to win contracts.
Israel's precision strikes, which targeted Iran's military and nuclear sites supplying Houthi rebels, have left a gap that Western tech is itching to fill.
Israel-based Elbit Systems Ltd(ESLT) , a drone and defense electronics darling, saw its shares jump 10.57% over the past five days alone. The stock has gained 21.51% over the past month and 77% YTD.
Cyber Shields Up: Digital Warfare Heats Up
But it's not just hardware. Cyber warfare is the new battlefield, and Iran's vow to retaliate has cybersecurity firms like Palo Alto Networks Inc(PANW) and Crowdstrike Holdings Inc(CRWD)on high alert.
Israel's Stuxnet legacy looms large, hinting at digital skirmishes ahead. Check Point Software Technologies Ltd(CHKP), another Israeli gem, is buzzing with about 20% stock spike YTD, as governments and corporations scramble to fortify digital walls.
For investors, it's a rare two-for-one: defense offers recession-proof stability, while cybersecurity rides a secular growth wave.
But beware – Lockheed Martin's(LMT) lofty 20.23x P/E and potential de-escalation could cool the rally. Still, with Trump's pro-defense stance and Middle East volatility, these stocks are a hedge worth betting on.
Read Next:
The $120 Oil Shock Just Became A Real Risk: Are We Back In 2022?
With the Israel attack on Iran the oil is up while the Indices are down. With the fear of the war expanding there is no eagerness to buy stocks. The close could be much lower unless there is a fair assumption by then as to where the war will go to.
I should be able to buy back my options at a good price.
Charlie Munger was right on.
We've only just begun,
To infect,
False lies and promises,
A kiss for bad luck, and we're on our way,
Before the setting sun, we'll steal, so many scams to choose,
Oh yes, we've just begun.............................................
What I expect is that Americans will lose huge amounts of money in baseless crypto scams
crypto will now begin to infect all financial investments
Pre-paid card and gift cards are one of the most effective forms of money laundering and grift going after all!
— Paul J Davies (@pauljdavies.bsky.social) 2025-06-13T09:37:55.996Z
A whistleblower last year also urged Boeing to ground all 787 Dreamliners worldwide, in Washington hearings. Boeing rejected the claims by the former engineer and said it was fully confident in the plane.
Using the Options in trading: I plan on buying back an Option for 25% or less of the selling price if it is the same month. If next month then for 50%, and if it is 2 months away then I will pay 75% of the sold price.
How An Unassuming Geologist Cracked The Global Fertilizer Cartel
Michigan is sitting on a motherlode of potash and Ted Pagano is using $1.3 billion in government funds to mine it and grab market share away from Canada and Russia.
The eureka moment came in 2012, when professor emeritus William Harrison of the University of Western Michigan invited Ted Pagano, then a 35-year-old freelance geologist, to his 27,000-square-foot geological repository in Kalamazoo. A rock nerd’s heaven, the warehouse’s heavy-duty shelves feature crates of minerals from across the state. But Pagano was there to see something specific: the 80 pallets of rock cores donated in 2008 by the Mosaic Company, a large ($11.1 billion in 2024 sales) NYSE-listed potash specialist. Cores are standardized cylinders of rock, three feet long and four inches in diameter. These were recovered from some 75 wells drilled back in the early 1980s to depths 8,000 feet beneath Osceola and Mecosta counties, a sparsely populated swath of central Michigan, into a layer of rock rich in minerals deposited by an ocean that evaporated millions of years ago. Those minerals include salt (sodium chloride) and potash (mostly potassium oxide), which farmers prize as a fertilizer. It’s a critical mineral—the U.S. uses 5.3 million tons annually and imports 95% of it, mostly from Canada.
Pagano was excited to see these cores because he hoped they would prove his hunch: that Mosaic had been sitting on a potash motherlode in Michigan far bigger than anyone realized. He suspected that the deposit, if properly developed, could provide 1 million tons of fertilizer per year for American farmers. That would be nearly seven times the volume that Mosaic’s little 150,000-ton-per-year plant in Hersey, Michigan, was producing. Putting up $70,000 of his own money, Pagano had formed Michigan Potash & Salt Company and was already leasing up mineral rights from ranchers and farmers in the area. Even so, Pagano says, “I went to the core lab with skepticism.”
Harrison and Pagano cut open sealed plastic bags to extract rock wrapped in newspapers from 1984. Testing revealed thick deposits of some of the highest-purity potash deposits ever discovered. They were especially excited when they opened the cores from a well called Stein 1-7. It had been drilled miles from the area considered the sweet spot, so Pagano thought the odds were high that these cores would show low concentrations of potash. Instead, they were just as good. This was proof that the actual extent of the Michigan potash deposit was considerably larger than even experts like Harrison had expected. Pagano began leasing like crazy: Soon he had a position covering 15,500 acres (about 24 square miles) of what has proven to be one of the biggest potash deposits in the United States.
“I was certain the Stein well would be a poor showing. Seeing it was just as good as the best well was astounding,” says Pagano, now 49. His Michigan Potash is on the cusp of closing on $1.8 billion of financing for a new mine, including a $1.3 billion loan from the Department of Energy and $500 million in equity being arranged by JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. If all goes well, the mine will be churning out 1 million tons per year of potash (worth $350 million) and 1.3 million tons of salt (worth $80 million) by the end of the decade. With a resource base proven to be 130 million tons, they could keep that up for a century or more—and make Pagano, who owns 65%, very rich. Even now his stake is worth at least $300 million.
Pagano grew up in Greeley, Colorado, the son of a tax preparer and an assistant librarian. After graduating from Notre Dame in 1997, he earned a master’s degree in petroleum engineering from the Colorado School of Mines. He got his start in the oil industry as a roustabout in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, then worked as a geologist for Alaska’s Bristol Bay Native Corporation. (He is part Aleut, the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands.) From there he worked at Texaco, Chevron and Anadarko drilling shale oil wells in Colorado. In 2008, at age 33, he struck out on his own, initially planning to lease prospective oilfields in North Dakota’s Bakken shale region, but land prices—which reached thousands of dollars per acre with a 20% royalty and five-year term—were too steep. Looking at other mineral trends in the northern Midwest, Pagano became fascinated with potash and puzzled by Mosaic’s little Hersey operation. Why hadn’t it expanded?[IMAGE]
Despite being based in Florida, Mosaic mines nearly all its potash in Saskatchewan, and sells it via Canpotex (Canadian Potash Exporters) through its 50/50 partnership with Canadian fertilizer giant Nutrien (2024 sales: $26 billion). Canpotex, alongside Belarusalki of Belarus and Russia’s Uralki, make up an oligopoly that controls more than 70% of global supply.
After exhausting his own funds, Pagano raised $250,000 more from friends and family in exchange for 13% of his company. Since then, the only outside money Michigan Potash has taken is a $50 million grant from Michigan’s state agriculture department in 2023 and a new $80 million grant from the USDA, crucial to getting through permitting.
When Pagano initially approached the U.S. Department of Energy for funding in 2021, he got the cold shoulder. Michigan Potash was tiny and unproven. But he and his team persisted—and in 2025, as the war in Ukraine dragged on, the DOE agreed to a 15-year, $1.3 billion loan. But it came with conditions: Pagano must raise $500 million in equity, and to reduce risk Michigan Potash will outsource construction under a lump-sum, turnkey contract. “Now [the DOE] look like geniuses,” says Cory Christofferson, Michigan Potash’s chief development officer.
What if we run short of potassium or phosphorus? That would be bad news for farmers and, by extension, the human race. It’s an element—two elements—of the coming environmental doom postulated by the accomplished, but perhaps too pessimistic, money manager Jeremy Grantham. If you share his pessimism, it would make sense to acquire a stake in a potash and phosphate producer. Two of the big ones are Nutrien and Mosaic, both trading on the Big Board and both paying above-market yields. They are priced, respectively, at 23 and 19 times what Value Line sees for earnings this year.
To extract the potash, Pagano will use a form of “in-situ,” or solution mining. He’ll drill 8,000-foot-deep wells in pairs. One is the injection well, down which Michigan Potash will send hot water to dissolve potash and salt in place. The second is the production well; the solution travels up that well to the processing plant for separation and drying. The water is reclaimed, heated and sent back down the hole. From the surface the mine will hardly be noticeable and should be eligible for green tax credits. “There’s no hair on this project that we’re ashamed of,” says chief operating officer Aric Glasser.
In all, Forbes estimates that costs should come to about $140 per ton; potash sells for about $350 a ton today. Global giant Mosaic can produce potash for less—about $80 a ton—but Midwestern farmers are still on the hook for another $80 per ton in rail shipping costs from Saskatchewan, 1,200 miles away, plus any tariffs that President Trump might choose to impose (currently 10% on Canadian potash). Agricultural giant ADM has already agreed to buy nearly all of Pagano’s yearly potash production.
Mosaic rejected Pagano’s offers to buy some or all of its remaining Hersey plant and, citing high costs, shut down its potash operation there in 2013. It sold the remaining salt processing operation to Cargill for $55 million. “They thought they didn’t have to worry about competition,” Christofferson says.
Vladimir Putin’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine changed that thinking. The EU banned the import or even transit of Russian and Belarussian fertilizers. China banned potash exports to conserve supply for its domestic market. Prices soared to $1,200 per ton. To keep a lid on costs, neither President Biden nor Trump has banned or sanctioned imported Russian potash.
Every ton Pagano can supply domestically should make more potash available outside the U.S. in international markets including sub-Saharan Africa, whose farmers desperately need fertilizer. “It takes a crisis to wake people up out of complacency,” Pagano says. And it takes an intrepid contrarian to challenge an oligopoly.
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