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Today's Summary

November was best November ever for native-born Americans, up more than 2.6 million over the last 12 months. Number of foreign-born workers with jobs declined over this period by 21,000. Unemployment rate rose to the highest level since late 2016/early 2017 – if you exclude the Covid era, where many people did not have to work. Tucker Carlson: Free speech was the whole point of Charlie Kirks public life. And I think that I think he died for it. And I really believe that. And people who do it. Wolf Richter is keeping track of the last traces of a dying republic where transparency, integrity, and true price discovery used to reign. 99% of inflation reporting/discussions are based upon 12 month (YOY) figures. YOY smooths much of this out an inflation is legitimately coming. This is a longer-than-usual podcast with Paul Kiker and me. We discussed four big topic areas: Silver (and gold), The so-called “jobless recovery,”... But we hate corporate and three letter agency AI bots. Wolf Richter: The people accepting sub-5% yields on the USs spiraling 10-30 year debt are tragically heroic. Condo prices already dropped by 12% to 30% in these 28 Bigger Markets. Wolf says the last CPI inflation report was marred by missing data. We have entered the Golden Age of Propaganda. This YIR is transitional and, in all probability, disappointing for some. At last check Grok ranked me fourth behind Michael Burry. Strauss and Howe predicted in 1996 that the next fourth turning would show up circa 2010 and probably be triggered (but not caused) by a financial crisis. Tucker Carlson interviewed Glenn Greenwald, Mike Benz, Walter Kirn and Nikola Nikola. California is a spawning ground for bad ideas. Barry Ritholtz speaks with Samantha McLemore, founder and CIO of Patient Capital Management. We discuss value investing has changed, investing in crypto, and the AI revolution. We also discussed long-term investing and the ways her firm is using AI. Barry Ritholtz: The Doomsday Glacier is getting closer and closer to Irreversible Collapse. The tulip bubble is the most famous financial bubble in history, but as historical examples go it also is misleading. California home sales rose in November from both the previous month. Anti-AI sentiment might not be rational, but relies on a lot of bad arguments. Andy Masley has debunked every single version of the “AI uses lots of water” narrative. Regunberg claims that an AI crash would wipe out normal Americans. China is the source of almost half of the top AI talent in the world. Domination of the global AI industry is going to largely come down to which country can attract more Chinese talent. Bitcoin is now a reserve asset, not contraband. Bitcoin crashed in November after profit-taking above $100,000, ETF outflows, and an estimated $20 billion leverage flush in October. Long-dormant “OG” wallets moved and sold hundreds of thousands of Bitcoin into strength, which many read as “smart money top-ticking the cycle” Trump-linked companies created the template for “official” political memecoins. Bitcoin price dropped to support once again last week, and the bulls defended it well, pushing the price back up to $88,656. The episode highlighted a critical point for a market where derivatives define the tape. Bitcoins 2026 all-time high stops sounding like a magical break of fate; it starts sounding like an extension of structural shift that began when the market moved on chain demand into traditional financial wrappers. The approach toward 20 million coins mined lands as a psychological marker. Investors are testing Bitcoin and tokenized gold as settlement rails built for stress. 2026 is likely to be a altcoin treasury year, says Melanion Capital CEO Jad Comair. Strategy, Forward Industries, BitMine, Bitmine, The Ether Machine and Metaplanet emerged as the years defining treasury players. China issues first 2026 fuel export quotas for the new year.