DOES SPANKING VIOLATE THE NON-AGGRESSION PRINCIPLE?

Wall Street's Trillion-Dollar Bet On "Tax Alpha" Tax alpha — the practice of improving investment returns by reducing taxes — has become one of the fastest-growing strategies on Wall Street, according to Bloomberg.  Rather than focusing only on beating the market, many investment firms now design portfolios to minimize taxes, often producing higher after-tax returns even if pre-tax performance is similar to traditional strategies. After years of rising markets, many wealthy Americans hold large unrealized gains in stocks and funds. To address the resulting tax burden, asset managers have developed a wide...

President Donald Trump says that Iran must agree to halt its nuclear enrichment program for 20 years to end the war. The position is a climb-down from Trump’s prior demand that Tehran permanently end its enrichment program.  A US official told Axios that during talks in Pakistan, the US proposed a deal where Iran agreed […]

Crude Stocks Rise 3.5 Million, Highest Since May 2025 With oil flows passing through the Straits of Hormuz blocked indefinitely, markets were paying especially close attention to today's weekly DOE report on oil stocks, to see how much capacity the US has in case of a prolonged lockout. The result was satisfactory.  The DOE reported the following weekly changes: Crude +3.475MM, more than the expected +3.00MM, and the highest since May 2025 Gasoline -1.704MM, down to the lowest since Jan 9, 2026 Distillates +429K, biggest increase since Jan 2026 Cushing +1.6MM, rising to the highest...