Starts with the headline that the Biden Administration leading a campaign to persuade leaders of G7 nations--UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and Japan to sign off on this plan that it views as vital to to giving Ukraine a shot at turning around it's prospects against Russia.  I recently had Jim Rickards on, the author of Currency Wars, and he says that the US is set to steal Russian-owned treasury securities have to G7 which he says this theft will not only destroy the US Treasury market overnight, but potentially do far more damage.  What are your thoughts, Tom, on this US-led campaign, and do you agree with Rickards?

3:02. I frame it a more complicated way than that but I don't disagree with Jim that yes if the US were to take the catastrophic move to seize Russia's Frozen foreign exchange assets that this would be an unprecedented event change the nature of pretty much global finance and it would change the nature of pretty much of global finance.  My problem with that view is that I don't want to let Europe off the hook hear first Ursula von der Leyen and her acceptance speech, for lack of a better term, winning another term as European Commission president, effectively made it abundantly clear yes we're going to take 1.7 billion dollars from Russian foreign exchange assets this month and the next month basically they're going to use they have set up a facility I've always viewed this.  And I don't view the Biden Administration is working for the best interest of the United States I never have I never will I think there are a bunch of vandals and I think they're a bunch of vandals that take their orders from Europe.

Davos have claimed that they will be using Russian assets frozen in the United States to execute the war in Ukraine.  This theft will not only destroy the treasury overnight but potentially do far mor  

WALL STREET SILVER: Sales are crashing at McDonald’s, Coke, and Kraft as low-end consumers run out of money. Meanwhile, it’s record sales at the top, from Lambos to Balenciaga.

Sales are crashing at McDonald’s, Coke, and Kraft as low-end consumers run out of money. Meanwhile, it’s record sales at the top, from Lambos to Balenciaga.

This is what happens when the Fed prints $6 trillion: It goes straight into the pockets of the rich via asset markets.… https://t.co/NdpcPjtGxc

— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) May 9, 2024

Recent earnings from McDonald's, Kraft, and Coke confirm that Bidenomics is turning into a two-speed affair with plenty of wealth at the top and plenty of pain for the rest.  Last week I joined Charles Payne, one of my favorite people at Fox, to talk about it.  So McDonald's, Coke, Nestle, Starbucks, and Pepsi have all now flagged that low-income consumers are no longer able to absorb inflation.  They are cutting back on visits and they are cutting back on spending, leading to a nationwide drop in traffic and sales across fast food and even basic groceries.  McDonald's reported same-store sales or down 3% and transactions dropped 7%, outpacing 4% price likes to keep up with inflation.  Pepsi reported a 5% drop in sales.  Nestle dropped 8% for Hot Pockets, frozen pizzas, and Stouffer's frozen dinners.  Kraft's Mac and Cheese, Pringles, and Pop-Tarts are all sagging.  Starbucks is losing the low end altogether with its stock plunging 14% after turning in lower revenue transactions and ticket sizes while losing fully 1.5 million Loyalty Reward users.  The CEO blamed "macro headwinds," meaning lower-end consumers squeezed by insulation and weak way growth.  Headwind is quite the understatement in fact Nestle's Chief Financial Officer estimates the loss and purchasing power among low-income people since Biden took office has come to roughly 50%.  It's a whole other reality on the high-end, where sales are doing fantastic.  Most reported strong growth in pricier beers as "more consumers treat themselves more."  More broadly, the luxury ETF LUXX which included brands like Hennessy, Hermes, and Ferrari is actually up 20% in the past 6 months as the wealthy gobble up their Balenciaga and let the poor eat TJ Maxx.  In fact, just a few months ago, Lamborghini announced they sold 10,000 cars for the first time in history, a third of them in the US and mostly the Urus SUV that goes for $237,000; that's $269,000 for the performance model with the carbon ceramic brakes with subtle off-white coloring in a watermark Bentley also reported record sales recently with Aston Martin and Rolls-Royce close behind one analyst sums it up as a "K-shaped economy with very different realities for those at the top and those at the bottom, reflected in strong credit card spending at the top paired with soaring delinquency rates for the rest."

2:47. The rich will keep getting richer and everybody else will keep getting inflation because that's how the Fed works and it's how crony government spending works the FED's $6 trillion money printing orgy paired with the $8 trillion in deficit spending. Since the pandemic has flooded money to anybody who either already owned assets, so rich people above all, or who was lucky enough to work at a politically connected company or government contractor.  As always, government money goes mostly to the powerful with an obligatory slab for vote buying at the bottom and nothing for the middle class.  The solution, of course, is very easy: a dollar-first monetary policy, ideally ending the FED along with ending the deficit, so Americans are not forced to run just to stay on the treadmill.  

Read the rest of the article with charts and all the Gory details at profstonge.com.