By Cecil Hoge

Time passes and things change. In January, the American People Spoke and a new President came to town. Big changes are underway. Big promises have been made. Time will tell how that goes.

As we passed into 2025, there were two terrorist attacks in this country in the first two days of January. The incoming President first said the two attackers were illegal immigrants who never would have been able to attack the United States if he was President. The FBI said the two attackers were U.S. citizens and both retired army officers. Later the President backed off the claim that the two attackers were immigrants, but continued to claim that illegal immigrants were the real problem of crime in the U.S.

The war in Ukraine continues. Vladimir Putin, the neo Czar of Russia, still presses his armed forces forward into Ukraine with daily attacks by missiles, drones, tanks and hundreds of thousands of Russian men. Ukraine resists to the best of its ability but one has to wonder how this war will conclude. The new President promised solve this problem on Day 1 of his Presidency. Day 1 has come and gone and presently we are in November. The President has sent his appointed envoy, Steve Witkoff, back and forth to the Kremlin to speak with Putin, but so far the war continues and Ukraine seems to be losing, day by day.

There is a new 28 Point Peace Plan on the table that Russia seems at peace with, but President Zelenskyy is not happy about it and so the U.S., Russia, Ukraine and the EU are working on a 19 Point Plan. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian or Russian troops have been killed or wounded.

For a while the U.S. President paused all weapons support and aid, including American surveillance assistance, going to Ukraine. Then, Volodymyr Zelenskyy accepted a General Ceasefire Proposal that had been put together by President Trump’s men. Then, the Trump Administration reinstated weapons support and aid, including American surveillance assistance. Then, Czar Vladimir Putin said “Nyet, a General Ceasefire is a wonderful idea, we like it very much, but not now”. It would seem Mr. Putin is playing a long game.

The back and forth discussion continues. Meanwhile, so does the war. Ukraine has signed a mineral deal with the United States. Presumably, The United States will now be a stakeholder and will help protect Ukraine, but so far no peace deal, 28 points or less, has come about. At the moment, the U.S. is not shipping weapons directly to Ukraine. Rather, it is selling weapons to the EU that are shipped to Ukraine.

In the meantime, Vladimir Putin attacks Ukraine daily, steadily increasing the number of missiles, drones, artillery and troops deployed. So far Ukraine seems to be slowly losing. As winter comes on, Russia has concentrated on destroying all electrical and heating generation in the Ukraine. That is probably a major problem for Ukraine as winter comes on. It would seem Mr. Putin believes he can achieve more with missiles, drones and artillery.

In the Mideast, turmoil and change still dominate. Israel seems to have won against Hamas, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Syria has exchanged its former leadership with a new leader. It is not clear whether the new leader will have control for many years or many months. Israel is occupying Gaza and has appropriated some additional segments of the Golan Heights and the West Bank.

Despite the fact that Hamas seems utterly defeated, they continue to hold on in the rubble of what was Gaza. Israel and Hamas are presently operating in a shaky ceasefire. A 20 Point Peace Plan has been agreed upon. The remaining living Israeli hostages have been released. The same cannot said some dead Israeli hostages who are apparently still lost under the rubble of Gaza. So far, only stage 1 of the 20 Point Peace Plan has been achieved.

In another development, President Trump sent planes and drones and missiles against the Houthis. The Houthis were disrupting shipping in the Red Sea. They had sent periodic strikes into Israel with Israel responding with direct attacks on the Houthis. Now, that a the 20 Point peace Plan is in effect, the Houthis have said they will back off of attacking ships in the Red Sea.

In Los Angeles, there was a devastating series of fires in January that destroyed almost 12,000 houses and displaced many thousands of people. The blame for this disaster has been put on the electric grid servicing Los Angeles, Climate Change, fierce Santa Anna winds, the Governor of California, DEI and assorted other bad guys. Many famous actors and celebrities lost their houses and are considering their options of rebuilding, fleeing California or just going to one of their other multi-million dollar homes.

Against this backdrop back of events in the first months of 2025, the new President and his new Administration have made many promises. Below are some:

Promise #1: Defeat inflation – the new President, 47, has pointed out that if he had been President in the last four years, there never would have been any inflation. Leading up to the election, Donald Trump promised to eliminate all inflation on Day 1. Since getting elected for the second time, he has backed off of that claim somewhat, saying “it is very hard to bring down inflation once it gets started and it was all caused by Biden.”

In any case, the Administration is claiming that their policies have already reduced the cost of oil and gas thanks to their support of the oil and gas industry and their “drill baby, drill” policy. Presently, the price of WTI oil is around $60. And most certainly, the price for oil and gas for consumers has gone down some.

There also was a big discussion on the price eggs in the early part of 2025. That apparently was caused by repercussions coming from the bird flu. Apparently, a whole lot of chickens had to be culled and the remaining chickens did not lay as many eggs. That led to a supply problem and when supply goes down, prices go up. The Administration has solved that problem by importing low cost eggs from Brazil and for now the prices of eggs have calmed down. In spite of lower prices for eggs now, the general overall price of groceries has increased 2.7% through this September.

Promise #2: Carry out the largest mass deportation in history. The President and his team are making big progress in making that happen. Presently, they are picking up 600 to 800 illegal immigrants a day and shipping them off to various countries that have agreed to accept them. The President is still dissatisfied with the numbers so far. Steven Miller, the President’s point man on emigration, is pushing his team to round up 1200 to 1500 people a day. Presently, there are 66,000 immigrants in detention facilities waiting to hear if they will be deported. What we can say for sure is mass deportations is well underway, arrests are increasing daily and certainly President is following through on his promise.

Now, it has to be noted that even though the President and team are moving as rapidly as possible, many court judges have issued various rulings that have either delayed or stopped some of the Trump deportations, declaring them to be illegal in various ways. But, persistence is the name of the game and the Trump Administration keeps proceeding with counter appeals and new large deportations. Sometimes the courts up hold the deportations, sometimes the Trump Administration is forced to delay some of the deportations. In all of the rulings and judgements, the Trump Administration tries to get the Supreme Court to issue final rulings in their favor. Apparently, the Trump Administration thinks the Supreme Court will give them better rulings.

A couple of months ago, Christi Noem, the present Secretary of Homeland Security has offered $1,000 per illegal immigrant to self deport. This is a new tactic on the part of the Administration. If all the 13 million illegal immigrants self-deport themselves that would cost the U.S. Government $13,000,000,000 – that’s, 13 billion dollars. Apparently, that would be cheaper than rounding up all 13 million illegal immigrants and shipping them all back to wherever.

Promise #3: Get rid of DEI – the Administration has moved fast to remove DEI references and inappropriate edicts from all Governmental websites, Government offices, Governmental Museums. In doing so, it has encouraged all major businesses to get rid their DEI policies. This process is well underway and soon the country will be DEI free. For those of you who do not know, DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Promise #4: Cut funding to schools that teach “critical race theory” and “transgender” matters. This is also proceeding rapidly. In the early part of the year, the Administration cut $400,000,000 in funding to Columbia University. That was because of student protests from Columbia University against Israel’s actions in Gaza, which, by the way, were precipitated by the Hamas September 7th attack on Israel.

The President and his Administration is also actively removing funding in as many ways as possible from Harvard. It seems the President has a special beef with that college. President Trump also ordered that no foreign students could go to Harvard and later changed his mind. It is not exactly clear why the President was trying to block foreign students from going to Harvard. Perhaps, it is stop foreign students from infecting American students with Communism or Socialism or perhaps, it is to prevent foreign students from becoming too good at Capitalism.

In a separate, but related development, Marco Rubio, The Secretary of State, has said the U.S. will “aggressively“ review and revoke the Visas of Chinese students. He suspects Chinese students may be either spying on the U.S. or seeking to steal our technological secrets or both.

Promise #5: Roll back electric vehicle incentives. Again, the Administration is moving rapidly on this, backing away from all Government support and financial funding and tax credits for electric vehicles. Elon Musk seemed to support this program in the early months of the new Administration, even though he owns an electric car company. Mr. Musk, a very busy and very rich man, has, in the first 5 months of this year, aided President Trump in a plan to cut Government spending. The Trump Administration set up a new advisory branch of the Government to cut costs and fire people called Doge and Mr. Musk was leading that effort. Recently, the Doge program has been terminated.

Most recently, Mr. Musk backed away from that Government work and is returning to his electric car company, his Space X company and to X, his tweet company. Even more recently, Mr. Must has launched his AI search program – Grok.

After backing away from Government work, a feud erupted between Mr. Musk and President Trump and the two have traded various barbs and threats. It would seem Mr. Trump presently has the upper hand on Mr. Musk after threatening to cancel Government contracts with Mr. Musk’s different companies. That led to Mr. Musk deleting some unpleasant Tweets that he had made against President Trump.

Promise #6: The President promised to resign from Paris Climate Agreement and has done just that. In addition, he and his team have moved swiftly to deleting all references to climate warming on Government websites, firing various research scientists from various Government posts, withdrawing financial support for scientific research and denying that there is any such thing as Climate Warming due to human activities.

Promise #7: Continue and make permanent the tax cuts first enacted in Donald Trump’s first Administration, eliminate taxes on tips to restaurant workers & Social Security Income, eliminate the Salt Tax in the Northeast & expand Child Care Tax Benefits. The Administration worked very hard to put all these tax cuts into their “big beautiful bill”.

Speaker Mike Johnson worked with the House of Representatives to make their version of the “Big Beautiful Bill” that includes all of the President’s tax promises. That bill has been passed the House of Representatives and the Senate and signed into law by President Trump.

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” is believed to add $4,600,000,000 (aka 4.6 trillion dollars) to the U.S. deficit in next 10 years. Estimates for other tax savings would add up to another 3 or 4 trillion dollars (give or take a few trillion) for restaurant waiter tips, no taxes on Social Security, Salt and Child Care exemptions. The President says this bill will usher in “The Golden Age”.

Promise# 8: Cut Waste and Corruption from the Government. Again, Donald Trump and his Administration are moving at “Trump Time” to make this happen fast, fast, fast. As mentioned above, the President appointed Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, to head a new independent agency, known as Doge. Apparently, Donald Trump was impressed with the fantastic job Elon did in saving money at Twitter (now known as X). There Mr. Musk fired 85% of the Twitter employees.

Mr. Musk and his youthful assistants have already fired tens of thousands of government workers. Some 80,000 veterans got the ax. Elon initially said he could save 2 trillion dollars, but that estimate has been downsized to 150 billion dollars. Some critics have said the true savings are closer to 50 billion dollars. Judging by the numbers that the Government is planning to spend in the “Big Beautiful Bill”, whatever savings that are found will be very important.

Complicating matters, just after Mr. Musk backed away from Doge work, he decided the “Big, Beautiful Bill” was an “abomination” that must be voted down. In the end, the “Big Beautiful Bill” was approved by the House, the Senate and the President, in spite of being opposed by the Democratic Party.

Promise #9: Replace Obamacare: This promise dates back to Mr. Trump’s first Administration. Replacing Obamacare wasn’t easy then and this project may take a bit more time. In the meantime, the Administration is looking hard at immediate savings in the present healthcare system. In particular, Medicaid has been targeted for large cuts. So this mission underway. It should be noted because there was Government Shutdown in October and November, ObamaCare subsidies have not been renewed. That is predicted to raise costs very substantially for the 43 million people previously receiving Obamacare Healy subsidies.

A group of Christian advocates, who had been successful in overturning “Roe versus Wade”, are said to be leading the charge to replace Obamacare. The Administration is said to be working on a plan to put the ObamaCare health subsidies back in place temporarily. So far, that has not happened.

In addition, the Administration is working on a Replacement Health Plan which they have been studying and considering since 2018. What the new replacement plan to Obamacare will be is still being discussed.

A new development this fall was the fact that Democrats and Republicans had disagreement about a new “CR”. A CR is a Continuing Resolution. That allows the Government to stay open for a short period until certain disagreements on the U.S. budget are agreed upon. The result of that spat is that the U.S. Government has been shut down for over 40 days and over 750,000 Government workers were furloughed without pay. This turn of events has also curtailed air traffic in the United States so far because Air Controllers are not being paid. That has led to 1,000s of flights being cancelled. Fortunately, the U.S. Government shutdown is now over and the government is now up and running.

Promise #10: Put Tariffs on all goods coming into this country. When Donald Trump was campaigning in 2024, he said repeatedly “Tariffs are the most beautiful word in the English language.” Surely, this is one of Mr. Trump’s most important promises. In less than a year he has already put tariffs on just about everything coming into this country from every country on the world.

More than just promising, he has already placed higher tariffs on many suspect nations…China, Mexico and Canada were among the first countries to be hit by new tariffs. All Chinese goods coming to this country are now subject to a 20% additional tariff, after going from 10% to 143% to 30% to 130% and now back down to 20%. The reduced 20% tariff was agreed upon because it seems the U.S. needs Rare Earth materials from China for weapons, cars, phones and laptops.

Since Mr. Trump, in his first Administration, has already tariffed some Chinese goods with either a 7.5% and a 25% tariff, that means many American companies importing goods from China are now paying 27.5% or 45% in tariffs on most Chinese goods.

So the present state of tariffs is that more than 190 countries had have new tariffs placed on them ranging from 10% to 50%. In addition many materials coming from other countries, be they friend or foe, have had tariffs placed on materials such as aluminum, steel and copper and automobile parts.

It should be pointed out that contrary to some widespread statements, tariffs are paid by U.S. companies importing goods from any tariffed country. Those tariffs are generally paid for within 10 days after they arrive at American ports. It also should be noted the companies paying those tariffs often raise their prices to cover the costs of tariffs.

In addition, President Trump initially put 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum. Those tariffs apply to all counties producing steel and aluminum that are exported to the U.S. And a few weeks after implementing the 25% tariffs, President Trump announced at a U.S. Steel rally in Pennsylvania that those tariffs were going to 50%. So now, any country in the world importing steel and aluminum must pay 50%.

It must be said that certain countries are not happy with tariffs slapped on them. Apparently, those countries are or may be considering raising tariffs and other taxes on U.S.

Promise #10: President Donald Trump has promised make the U.S. the world Capital of Crypto. This is a surprising turnaround for Mr. Trump. A few years ago, Donald Trump declared Crypto a financial scam. So, the once dubious President has become a true believer. Aiding his belief has been the fact that some major Crypto Capitalists have donated significant sums to his Presidential Campaign. Then there is the later event that President Trump accepted Meme Crypto Coins in his and his wife’s name. President Trump, his wife and his sons are all said to have done quite well financially as a result of the Administration’s new focus on Crypto assets.

Promise #11: End the Ukraine War – as mentioned above, the President has repeatedly promised he would end the war in Ukraine on Day 1 of his Presidency. That hasn’t happened yet, but the President is working hard on achieving a quick and durable peace, assuring Russia he would not blame them for their invasion of Ukraine and letting Russia know they can keep the territories they have presently conquered. Mr. Trump’s diplomatic team also has said, not to worry, they would not let Ukraine become a member of NATO.

On the Ukraine side, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has had exciting face to face meetings with President Trump and Vice President Vance, beginning with meeting where President Zelenskyy was told by the President that he had “no cards”. Later, some U.S. officials mentioned Mr. Zelenskyy was unthankful and neglected to wear a suit. Just after that, President Trump cut all arms and aid shipments, all access to U.S. Intelligence support, and all access to satellite pictures showing Ukraine what missiles and drones were incoming at it and what areas the Russians might be advancing.

Some more traditional diplomats have suggested this not the usual tact to take when negotiating peace between adversaries, but surely the naysayers must admit it was a new approach that might lead to some kind of a deal. And again, as mentioned in the beginning of this article, after Putin said no to a ceasefire, President Trump has agreed to sell NATO weapons for Ukraine and provide intelligence support and access to helpful satellite pictures. Presently, the Administration has been working on a 28 Point Peace Program which has been down-sized to 19 Points.

Promise #12: Change the name of the Gulf of Mexico – while this was not generally stated as a goal of Donald Trump or The Future Trump Administration when he was on the campaign trail, as soon as he was in office President Trump said it was a mighty good idea. So, the President has issued an Executive Order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The President has said that new name has a lovely sound. So, while there have been protests from Mexico, the AP and a few other parties, we can say: Mission Accomplished.

Promise #13: Take Back the Panama Canal – this another promise the President kept under wraps before he was in office, but upon election, he mentioned it would be nice to acquire back the Panama Canal, especially since they were overcharging us for going through the canal and were not letting our military ships to go through for free. Panama did respond by saying they are a sovereign country and that they had no intention to give up the canal. Finally, they said that they charged everybody the same price to go through the canal. President Trump brought up the fact that he thought they had turned the canal over to China and he was not going to let that happen. We might also mention that President Trump has suggested that it would be nice to own Greenland and offer Canada the opportunity to be the 51st State. So far, neither country has shown much interest in those 2 suggestions. Let’s call this is an unfolding and ongoing story.

Promise #14: Get rid of the Department of Education. A new head of The Department of Education has been appointed, Linda McMahon. In the previous Trump Administration, she served as the head of the SBA from 2017 to 2019. So, far, she has fired 50% of the staff and President Trump has recently signed an excutive order to dismantle the remaining parts of the Department of Education. Some Democrats say this will hurt poor families and disabled children. Many Republicans, Democrats & commentators are saying Mr. Trump and Linda McMahon are moving swiftly to delete the Department of Education. Some say, Congress has to pass a new law to eliminate completely the Department of Education, but so far, it is almost mission accomplished.

Promise #15: President Donald Trump has promised a New Golden Age for the United States. In doing this he has promised to jump start America’s economy. And surely, it can be said we have seen signs of this new Golden Age. The stock market, which in the beginning of this year was tepid, has turned around and roared ahead. By many measures, Stock Market Indices are at their highest values ever. Other signs that The Golden Age is upon us is the fact that inflation has been reduced from the Biden Administration high of 9% to just 3%. Eggs, as mentioned, have come down from their highs, gas and oil prices are down, profits of our nation’s biggest businesses are up and AI, that darling of Wall Street, is up, up, up and away.

I would like move from the Administration’s Promises and go back to some the other things that happened this year so far:

On June 13th, a Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu, ordered an air attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And so began a direct war with Israel and Iran. This attack soon morphed into further attacks on various other targets in Iran. For its part, Iran responded by sending missiles into the major cities of Israel. Most of those were shot down by Israel’s Iron Dome.

These back and forth attacks continued for 10 days. It was generally felt that the Israeli attacks on Iran were more effective than Iran’s attacks on Israel. In spite of the early successes of the Israeli air attack, it became clear that Israel’s bombs were not really sufficiently strong to actually destroy the nuclear sites that Israel was attacking. Apparently, the United States was the only country with ordinates sufficiently powerful enough to completely destroy Iran’s protected nuclear facilities.

As the first days of the war passed, while most of the incoming Iranian missiles we’re shot down by Israel’s “Iron Dome” system, more and more of the missiles actually got through and began to cause damage to buildings and deaths and injuries in Israel. This was most troubling because many Israelis found themselves hovering in air raid shelters every evening. And while Israel had been accustomed to incoming rockets occasionally from Hezbollah, the Houthis and assorted terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria, usually those attacks featured far less powerful missiles and usually the attacks were for very short periods of time.

On the 21st of June, Donald Trump ordered an elaborate air strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities with 125 airplanes, including multiple B2 Stealth Bombers carrying 22,000 lb. “bunker busting” bombs. This attack was immediately declared a total success. The President of the United States said that all 3 nuclear sites had been “obliterated “.

So now Iran has been gravely disabled and Israel has triumphed against its many enemies. That said, peace has not quite been accomplished.

While all of the above has been going on, President Trump has initiated his own redecoration plans for the White House. First he installed a cement patio for the Rose Garden and a bunch tables, chairs & umbrellas where once there was only green lawn and chairs. President Trump said the new patio in the Rose Garden would work much better for the many ladies who had previously had to stand in their high heels on a grass lawn.

Moving on to the Oval Office the President added some gold decorations for the fireplace, some gold bowls and cups for the mantlepiece and gold frames for some different paintings not previously displayed. The Trump Administration did not purchase most of these new decorations – so the American public is not on the hook for those costs. Rather, these new decorations were gifts from various countries and large corporations.

One has to admit, the Golden Age has arrived in the Oval Office. See the somewhat drab appearance of the Oval Office under former President Biden below.

I have taken a lot of time writing this blog story and I apologize for that, but I was waiting to see how the Mideast disputes would come out, what peace developments would occur in the Ukraine and what final deals would be made regarding tariffs. It now seems these issues are either resolved or moving towards resolution, it seems clear that we are closer to a resolution of these problems, but we are not quite there.

If you think about it, there is a lot happening regarding the Trump Administration, the country and the world and I have mentioned only some of the things that have happened in the last 11 months.

In truth, if I tried to give you the full description of what happened in this country and the world, this blog story would have to be a full-scale novel. However, to give you some idea of this hyper active year, I would like to try to mention some other notable events in the last few months.

End of June, 2025 – A ceasefire between Iran and Israel began after U.S. deployed B-2 Bombers to blow up some nuclear facilities in Iran. Russian bombardment of Ukraine continued. Zohran Mamdani claimed victory in New York’s primary. Nvidia’s share price hit a new high. Custom duties collected in the U.S. hit a monthly high of 27 billion dollars. Majorie Taylor Greene supported the release of the Epstein Files.

July, 2025 – The “Big Beautiful Bill” was approved by The Senate. Elon Musk called the “Big Beautiful Bill” an “abomination”. The Trump Administration put pressure on Harvard & The University of Virginia about DEI. S & P 500 broke a new record. A flood in Texas swept away hundreds people at a campground killing many. Elon Musk announced the formation of the America Party. President Trump said Elon Musk “had gone off the rails.” The U.S. promised to send more defense weapons to Ukraine. Russia recognized the Taliban Government. President Trump announced a 50% tariff on copper. Nvidia reached a 4 trillion dollar market cap. Trump agreed to sell NATO Patriot air-defense weapons and let NATO send them to Ukraine. Donald Trump announced 50% tariffs on Brazil. Ukraine and Russia held some more peace talks in Istanbul.

August, 2025 – The President imposes an extra 27% tariff on India, bringing the overall tariff on some Indian goods to 50%. Palantir reported selling 1 billion dollars in the last quarter. Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops to Washington, DC. 30 year old Bond Yields go briefly to 4.96%. President Xi held talks with President Putin. Earthquakes in Afghanistan killed 1400 people. The Price of Gold rose to more than $3500 per troy ounce. Zelensky came to Washington for talks with Donald Trump on ending the Ukraine War. Spain had wildfires. Target post posted a 22% drop on net profits.

September, 2025 – Poland shot down some drones that were thought to come from Russia. Israel bombed a villa in Doha where senior Hamas officials were meeting. Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist, was shot dead in Utah. Oracle’s stock rose 33%. Bureau of Labour Statistics reported 910,000 fewer jobs created in the 12 months ending in March, 2025. Apple unveiled the iPhone 17. Donald Trump told the UN General Assembly “Your countries are going to hell,”. 100,000 people attended the memorial service for Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona. Alibaba’s share price reached a new high in Hong Kong. Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact with Pakistan. American forces blew up a second Venezuelan boat suspected of transporting drugs. Alphabet’s market valuation passed 3 trillion dollars.

October, 2025 – Donald Trump announces a 20-point Peace Plan to end the war in Gaza. The U.S. Government shutdown and the House of Representatives went into recess for 6 weeks. Sanctions were imposed on Iran. Nike predicted that tariff costs for them would reach 1.5 billion dollars this year. A ceasefire in Gaza went into effect. Donald Trump announced “peace in the Middle East”. A grand jury indicted Letitia James. The price of silver hit a record $53 per ounce. Rodrigo Paz, a centrist, won the Presidential election in Bolivia. China’s economy increased 4.8% in the third quarter.

November, 2025 – Donald Trump met President Xi in Korea and declared it “amazing”. President Trump announces an extra 10% tariff on Canada. Hurricane Melissa walloped Jamaica destroying the electrical grid and thousands of homes. Alphabet’s quarterly revenue passed 100 billion dollars and their market cap approached 4 trillion dollars. The House of Representatives and the Senate pass the Transparancy Act to release the Epstein Files. The President signed The Transparency Act. Nvidia’s market cap surpasses 5 trillion dollars. James Comey, the former FBI director, is indicted by the DOJ. Takaichi Sanae, a woman, was elected leader of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party. The price of gold rose above $4,000 per Troy ounce. Industrial production declined in Germany in August 4.3%. Marjorie Taylor Green said she will resign from Congress in January. The U.S. Government deficit for the year 2025 ending October, 2025 was 1.78 Trillion Dollars. The deficit for the first month in the new 2026 year beginning November, 2025, was 284 billion dollars – that’s $284,000,000,000. The cases against Letitia James and James Comey were dismissed.

At the time I was finishing this blog story, the stock market was at or close to all-time highs, the Crypto market was suffering a “Crypto Crash”, inflation was running 3% or more, the U.S. Government was planning to issue more bond debt than ever before in its history, the largest technology companies on the planet were spending trillions of dollars in building data centers and predicting confidently the AI would change our world in every possible way.

Eric Schmidt, formerly of Google, was predicting that AI was soon be capable doing every single job that humans do. Elon Musk was predicting that only when AI is more fully developed and most humans have AI robots in their homes will the problem of wealth inequality be solved.

What I can say for sure is that The New Golden Age has not quite come about and it might be a bit early to say that it will come about. Given the violent shifts of day to day events, the questions about inflation, rising unemployment, the concerns about affordability and the struggles of different competing factions in this country and elsewhere, it is still unclear if there will be peace and prosperity in the U.S. and/or in the world.