Why I Joined Monetary Metals

US Retail Sales Jumped Most In 8 Months In February Bank of America's omniscient analysts forecast a very strong month for Retail Sales in February data (released today)... The actual print was +0.6% MoM (better than the 0.5% consensus, but less than BofA's forecast) comes after a revised higher 0.1% MoM decline in January (and December's nothingburger)... Source: Bloomberg That is the highest MoM rise since June 2025, and sales rose 3.7% YoY... Core Retail Sales (Ex Autos) rose 0.5% MoM (much better than expected) and Ex Autos and Gas also rose more than...

D.C. Economy "Under Strain," Faces Biggest Spending Cuts Since Great Recession The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released its state-level real gross domestic product data on Thursday, revealing a sharply uneven economic landscape in the fourth quarter of 2025, with boom times in North Dakota contrasting with a sharp slowdown spreading across the Mid-Atlantic, especially in Washington, D.C. "From a regional perspective, real GDP increased in 35 states in the fourth quarter of 2025, with the percent change at an annual rate ranging from 3.8 percent in North Dakota to –8.3...

New Bill Opens Door For Killer AI Weapons Authored by Jon Fleetwood, A newly introduced U.S. Senate bill would allow the military to deploy autonomous lethal artificial intelligence systems by granting the Secretary of Defense the authority to override its own restrictions. Senate Bill S.4113—the “AI Guardrails Act of 2026,” introduced March 17, 2026 by U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin (D-MI)—is being presented as a framework to limit how the Department of Defense uses AI. But the actual text includes a built-in waiver mechanism that enables those same systems to be approved and used...