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Today's Summary

Zach Buchwald is the eighth CEOO in 90 years of Russell Investments. Russell is credited with inventing smart beta and inventing the Russell 2000 index index. Zach joined Russell in 2023 from previous career at BlackRock. NATO creating bank to prepare for war with Russia – media RT (Kevin W) NATO creating a bank to. prepare for. war with. Russia – Media RT. Chris Martensons first Renaissance Report comes out today. His hypothesis is that “something or somebody broke yesterday” Martensons Straight Story” launched in 2006 to warn people about what I thought was a housing bubble. Markets are still figuring out how to value ‘artificial intelligence (read that as a descriptor)- a novelty in business. Every call center will be AI Auditing, Paralegals will use AI, all doctors will use it. Business investment outrunning consumption growth is a classic recession story: “Oops, we built too much capacity” Big data is a scary thing,  Cash. D Abraham Graves DepressionRMPool Helsinki lots newsUk graveyard Water Hair velvet denounced Gold and silver plunged $587.00 an ounce this morning in a blow to everyday investors who had piled into the precious metals this year. Producer Price Index Jumps on Disconcerting Spike in Services PPI. Long-term investors in precious metals should not worry about what to do with their stack. Warsh meeting was just an excuse for this particular plunge. Housing starts decreased to 1.246 million annual rate in October. Mortgage debt is up $2.99 trillion from the peak during the housing bubble, but, as a percent of GDP is at 43.9% - down from Q2 - and down from 73.1%. Selling China H200s makes World War III a bit more likely in the next decade. NAR reports existing home sales in December at 4.35 million. Case-Shiller: National House Price Index up 1.4% year-over-year in November. Binance says it will convert the $1 billion Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) entirely into bitcoin over the next 30 days. The longer Europe can support Ukraine, the less Russia will be able to recover. Bitcoin price plunged to nearly $75,000 today during a continuous and sharp, high-volume sell-off that erased more than 10% from recent highs. Bitcoin gets sold for the same reason other liquid positions get sold: because risk limits are binding. Bitcoin is finally ready to be the macro alternative. Bitcoin trading at $82,687, down nearly 6% over the past 24 hours. Six Democratic senators accuse Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche of violating conflict-of-interest law by dismantling crypto enforcement while holding substantial digital assets. Vitalik Buterin withdraws $44.7m in eth to support ethereum growth through ‘mild austerity’ - decrypt. Politicians at Davos this year seemed more concerned about cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, and geopolitics. Europe expected to import a record-high volume of LNG this year as stronger demand for replenishing storage sites, the phase-out of Russian supply, and continued pipeline exports to Ukraine will drive increased demand. Libya has reopened exploration and signed major contracts with international oil companies.