Speaker 1: Well, hello, how are you welcome to the Big Podcast.
It is Wednesday. Today is the eighteenth day of March,
Year of Our Lord, twenty twenty six. My name is
Tom Sullivan, and a lot to go over today. It
was we'll get you updated on the latest and greatest
from all the commentators about what's going on with the
war in Iran. There was and also an oil analyst.
I just think it is amazing at describing the situation
with oil and gas and prices. But I want to
start with there were hearing in the Capitol today in Washington,
and they were catching a lot of attention. One of
the hearings was the annual Worldwide Threat Testimony to Congress,
specifically the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Tulsey Gabbard was
there as the dn I Director of National Intelligence. You've
got John Ratcliffe was there, the CIA Director. You've got
a couple of military generals that were there to talk
about worldwide threats against the United States. That was one hearing.
Then down the corner around the corner down the hall
was another hearing, and this was the committee that oversees
the Department of Homeland Security and they were taking testimony
from Mark Wayne Mullen. This is the I mean, they're
not letting any grass grow under their feet. This is
very quick. They're trying to get the Senate nomination process
done very quickly to make Mark Wayne Bullen the new
Secretary of Homeland Security. Meantime, christineom she's still technically the
Secretary until the end of March, but I think she's
gone nobody. Yeah, they've probably moved all of her things
out by now. But let's start with the whole business
about the worldwide threat. Because Tulsey Gabbard got a lot
of questions, and one of them was about the fact
that what were you doing in Georgia, Fulton County, Georgia
when they FBI went in to pick up all of
the twenty twenty election ballots and you were there? Why
were you there? And she said that she was there
at the direction of the president. The problem with that
answer is the President said, I don't know anything about it.
Pam Bondi is the one who sent her. So there
wasn't a straight answer from that at all. It just
struck me that it doesn't matter which hearing Congresses is
predictable and it's too bad. Why can't they do anything
to try to accomplish things together. I know they can't
and I know the two party system has its benefits,
but all it is is performance performative politics, where if
you are, in this case Tulcy Gabbert, a member of
a Republican administration, the Republicans are going to throw you
softballs and the Democrats are going to throw you hardballs,
and it's very predictable, and yet nothing changes. So they
will have a vote on things, but they don't want
with this case. Tulsea Gabbert went back to her office
and continued on with being the director of now National Intelligence.
Then on top of that, over at the other hearing
for the DHS Secretary, Mark Wayne Mullen. Interesting guy. He
not only was a very successful businessman in Oklahoma, and
then he ran for Congress and became a member of
the House of Representatives for a few terms, then ran
for Senate and he is a first term senator. President
likes him. Part of it maybe because Mark Wayne Mullen
is kind of a no nonsense guy and he's kind
of a tough guy. In fact, there was a hearing
oh a year ago maybe where Sean O'Brien, the head
of the Teamsters Union was testifying before this committee, on
which Mark Wayne Mullen was one of the members, and
Mullen asked Sean O'Brien a question, and I don't know what.
I forget what happened, but Mullen challenge Sean O'Brien to
a fight right there. It was like, okay, let's do
it right now. Bernie Sanders was also part of the
committee and told Mullen, now grow up and become a
senator to sit out. Well. Today, it was interesting because
accompanying Mark Wayne Mullen to this hearing was Sean O'Brien,
So they, like a lot of guys, they got into
kind of a do you know what I'm going to
do to you sort of thing, and then they became friends.
And apparently Mark Wayne Mullen and Sean O'Brien are buddies,
and Sean O'Brien showed up the hearing to support him today.
The problem that Mark Wayne Mullen had, though, goes back
to another problem, and this is rand Paul. Now. Ran
Paul has already said this afternoon that he is going
to be a no vote on Mark Wayne Mullen becoming
the Secretary of Homeland security. Meantime, John Fetterman looks like
he's going to be a yes boat. He hasn't said exactly,
but he's very favorable toward Mark Wayn mullan. Mark Wayn
mullen not only successful businessman, but he also was an
undefeated mixed martial arts a fighter, so he's a tough guy.
And Ran Paul, who's an optometrist, that's his Yeah, you know,
he's a medical doctor specializes in eye care. In any case,
he and Mark Wayne Mullen don't like each other. I've
got to bring you back a couple of years ago.
I don't know what happened. Nobody ever found out what happened.
But Ran Paul was out in front of his house
mowing the lawn, trimming hedges, doing homeowner things, and apparently
he has a problem or the neighbor has a problem
with him. But the neighbor came over. They got into
a fight. Yes, they got into a fight, and the
neighbor got the better part of Ran Paul. He broke
six of his ribs and Ran Paul had to have
surgery took out part of his lung. So Ran Paul
has that on his background. And Mark Wayne Mullen at
the time that went down said something to the effect
of Bernie Sanders is a communist, but he's honest and
he he and he says what he believes. Ran Paul,
on the other hand, is a snake. So that comment
about calling Ran Paul a snake came back today and
Ran Paul went after Mark Wayne Mullen because he he
doesn't like him. They don't like each other. Here's a
little bit from the hearing today.
Speaker 2: I'll give you that chance to clear the record. Tell
it to my face. If that's what you believe, tell
it to me today. Tell the world why you believe
I deserve to be assaulted from behind.
Speaker 3: I said, I could understand because of the behavior you
were having that I gotta understand why your neighbor, why
the neighbor did what he did. As far as my terms,
is the snake in the grass, sir. I work around
this room to try to fix problems. I've worked with
many people in this room. Seems like you fight Republicans
more than you work with us, haven't. I don't the
word apologize, haven't heard the word regret.
Speaker 2: Haven't heard I misspoke and it was heated and I
made a mistake any of those words, sir.
Speaker 3: I actually it wasn't heated, and I'm not apologizing for
point not your countor coodn't.
Speaker 1: So it was like two schoolboys that not they don't
like each other. And he said, I'm not apologizing for
pointing out your character. He still doesn't like Rand Paul.
So later after the hearing, the Rand Paul gave this interview.
Speaker 2: No, and I think his anger issues that he has
as an individual, and his celebration of the violence that
happened to me, but also his justification of the violence
when he's you know, engaged and he was ready to
have a fistfight in a committee. And when they asked
him after he had cooled off days later, you know,
would he reject any of that? Does he regret any
of it? And he said no, he had no regrets.
In fact, he referred to historical examples of violence as justification.
He said, well, yeah, we've always had canings and duels,
and he seemed oblivious to the fact that I pointed
it out to him again today the duels were illegal
one hundred and seventy years ago. When they happened, people
would flee the jurisdiction to get away from the police
because he was already illegal to have duels. But nobody
really in the modern age that I know of, other
than Mark Wayne Mullen is justifying political science political violence
as oh, well, we need a manly way to settle
our differences and some of those people just need to
be punched in the mouth. That to me is bizarre
and I think makes him unfit to lead federal law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Oh, Rand Paul doesn't like Mark Wayne Bull and so
the question is, however, can Ran Paul vote for Mark
Wayne Mullen.
Speaker 2: Now, I mean, an apology might have had a chance,
but he's had several chances. I talked to him privately
and he referred to it that we had political differences,
and today he said we should set aside our political differences. Well,
political differences would be I'm against the refugee welfare program
and I've told him he's for it. That's a political difference.
But if I wished violence on his family, that wouldn't
be acceptable. And if he says the violence that happened
to me where I had six ribs broken, my lung, damage,
part of my lung removed to pneumonia's if he thinks
that's justifiable, and he can readily understand it. He can
completely understand it. I think that makes him unacceptable and
unfit old office.
Speaker 1: So they got into not only ran Paul, but also
the ranking member of Democrat got into a question about
some trip that Mark Wayne Mullen took as a member
of the House of Representatives, and they wanted to know
what the trip was about, and Mark Wayne Bullen said
it was a classified trip, so I can't talk about it, period,
and they wouldn't. They were having a hard time, but
ran Paul still having a hard time dropping the questions.
I don't know what happened on this trip, but they
couldn't talk about it because Mark Wayne Bullen said it
was classified and all the members of Congress seemed to
nod in agreement that it was.
Speaker 2: I was classified. So of course, by doing it and
classified hearing, almost nothing is able to be revealed. But
whether or not this is a personal sort of disagreement,
it is not a personal disagreement when one of your
colleagues says they could completely understand why six of your
ribs were broken, your lung was damaged. I had part
of my lung removed. I had an infection almost had.
You know, I had an infection that had a twenty
five percent death rate. So I mean no, I went
through hell, and anybody who thinks that that's something that's
commendable is an unfit person to lead law enforcement.
Speaker 1: But it's not just that.
Speaker 2: It's his reaction and committees jumping up saying he'll fight
the person there taking his wedding ring off, and then
the idea that really, oh, it's justified because we've had
canings before him. I asked him about Charles Sumner, the
famous abolitionist who was bludgeon nearly to death. He's unconscious,
laying on the ground, blood coming out of his ear,
blood coming out of his mouth. He is unconscious, and
the thug from South Carolina kept beating him. He could
have been dead for all he knew. And there was
another representative from South Carolina with a gun holding everyone
back so they couldn't help him. And somehow markway Mullen
thinks that's a good example of when men were men
and that's the way we could sell our differences man
to man. Well, that's crazy. Nobody believes that. I didn't
think in the modern world, even in eighteen sixty they
thought it was terrible what happened to Charles Sumner. And
if he can't see that or empathize with people who
suffered from political violence, boy, I think he really precludes
himself from.
Speaker 4: This kind of job.
Speaker 1: Well, back to the neighbor. Thought I was. You know,
when I first heard this story, I thought the neighbor
had to be some great, big giant, you know, Paul
Bunyan type guy. No, Ran Paul. I've met him a
few times. He's not a very big man, and neither
is his neighbor. It was a neighbor. His name Renee Butcher,
and I I thought photo of him, he looks kind
of like he's about the same stature, same size as
Rand Paul. But in any case, Butcher wound up sentenced
to thirty days in jail for the attack, one hundred
hours of community service, a ten thousand dollars fine. Prosecutors
came back and said eighty age more. So they sent him.
They said, okay, eight months more in prison, and you'll
get credit for the thirty days served. Plus he's going
to have six of the eight months he can do
with home confinement. So and the whole argument apparently was
over a property line. I guess, I guess it must
have been quite a dispute, but ran Paul was really
really hurt. And also then ran Paul sued him civilly
and he had to pay five hundred and eighty thousand
dollars in damages to ran Paul. So quite a dispute
with your neighbor. Meantime, after all was said and done,
you got the story now about the fight that he
had with his neighbor, and he doesn't like Mark Wayn
mullen because Mark Wayne Mullen is too much of a
tough guy. All of a sudden done, he was asked, well,
you think Mark Wayn Mullen is going to be confirmed
as Secretary of Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 2: At this point, I think he'll get Democrat votes, and
so I think he probably if I had to guess,
we'll probably still win without my vote. But I can't
imagine a person who won't apologize, who basically says you
deserve to be assaulted, have your ribs broken. I don't
know how anybody you know, who they would expect, could
actually vote for that. And I can't imagine what kind
of person with any sense of decency wouldn't have apologized
for the comments, and just I gave him a chance.
I said, you could have said you were angry because
I revealed how you voted on the refugee welfare. You know,
he voted for this refugee welfare. I had an amendment
to repeal the refugee welfare. And he got a lot
of grief at home because we put it all over
the internet, not how he voted, but how everyone voted.
We never singled him out, but he was unhappy about
that and he lashed out against me. But the thing is,
he could have just said I was unhappy at the time,
and really I shouldn't have said that. That's what a
normal person would say. But this is a guy who
was justifying his fighting behavior by referring to dueling and
caning in the Senate. So that, to me is an anomaly.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you make of it, but obviously
Rand Paul, I don't think I would forget it either
if somebody broke my ribs. But Rand Paul man he
has a grudge. He kept repeating about his six broken
ribs and his lungs and all I get it. But
then he's ranting on about the fact that he voted
differently on some refugee bill. He just man Ran Paul
comes across like a quiet, nice man, but he really
holds a grudge, no question about it. And you thought
this only took place on school yard playgrounds. So I
guess this is a good time as any let's get
updated on the war. As far as the leaders of Iran,
every day another top leader is taken out. The guy
who was taken out was the head of their intelligence.
Last night, two were taken out the day before. Kareem Satapor,
who's with the Carnegie Institute, knows the characters that were
being killed.
Speaker 5: Very significant regime because Adielodi Johnny was really the only
one left in that system who had decades of both
domestic policy experience and foreign policy experience in decades of
institutional memory. So one of the last really competent people
in that regime and not someone who is easily replaceable. So,
as the President alluded to, Ali Lodi Johnny was a
ruthless guy himself. He was implicated in the massacre of
thirty thousand people potentially last January. But there aren't that
many I would say, competent officials left in this system.
So it is indeed true that they will replace him
with someone who could potentially be even more dogmatic than him.
But I do think this was a demoralizing blow to
the regime. That said, we still haven't seen any cracks
in the system, and we still haven't seen any signs
that it's a regime prepared to change its long time
revolutionary identity.
Speaker 1: I've always believed that we're all replaceable, there's nobody that's irreplaceable.
Yet according to this expert, apparently these leaders truly were irreplaceable.
Speaker 5: Well, we still obviously haven't seen much Shabahamani, who is
ostensibly the supreme leader, the most powerful guy in the country.
We think he's in hiding. He's been injured, and the
attack that killed his father and his mother and his
wife and some of the senior advisors to him, These
really thuggish characters behind the scenes. They're probably also in
hiding because they have Israeli Bose eyes on them. And
so you ask yourself, you know, how on earth can
this system last like this? When it's hiding underground. They
can't communicate with one another because their communications have been
so thoroughly penetrated, and it's a system, which was almost
bankrupt before this war started, and now they're even a
much more dire economic straits. Well, I think it's this
is the tail of three wars. There's the military war,
the economic war, and then the police war. And militarily,
obviously the United States and Israel are absolutely dominating. Iran
has been significantly degraded internally and its regional proxies have
been degraded. But for Iran, they're also fighting this economic
war in which they want to spike the price of
oil to impact American public opinion. And that is the
third part of this war, the political war. All dictatorships,
you know, the advantage they have when they're fighting democracies
is they have contempt for their own public opinion. And
what Irana have been saying this for a long time,
but they're hoping is that American public opinion is going
to force Trump to end this war abruptly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you heard them think they think that they've
got our number. That Americans get absolutely worn down very
quickly about war and especially about high gas prices, and
you want all that to change. And they think that
we will put pressure on our president and our lawmakers
in Washington to stop the war. That's what they're counting on,
and they're not They're not far off that there's a
large group of people who do want everything to stop
because gas prices are higher inside Iran.
Speaker 5: This is obviously a deeply aggrieved population at the moment,
they're under bombardments, so they're waiting to see how the
dust is going to settle. But yes, the leadership in
Iran are going to be inheriting a wreckage. Their only
goal really is to survive. And if they think if
they if they survive, that's that's victory.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they take that attitude of you don't have to win,
you just don't you just don't lose, just hold on,
take the pounding, and weigh out the Americans because the
Americans will cave. But meantime, Russia is involved with helping Iran.
Speaker 5: You know, for Russia, Iran is a tactical partner because
it's a thorn in the side of the United States.
And there's been intelligence reports that Russia has been sharing
key intelligence with Iran targets to hit but ultimately, and
this is one of the loneliest regimes in the world
after North Korea, it's probably the loneliest government in the world.
Speaker 1: So about the people that are very one sided, almost
pro Iran. These are Americans that are pro Iran. They
want Iran to win, and Jenner Colonel Darren gobb recognizes
the fact that there is an element in this country
that is rooting for the animy.
Speaker 4: I guess what stuck out to me most was that
they're trying to it seems, specifically like Senator Warner, for example,
trying to create this narrative where everything that they're painting
as potentially going wrong with the conflict in Iran is
something that the intelligence community should have or may have
shared with President Trump and he subsequently ignored. And I
hope that narrative doesn't consist throughout this but I suspect
it will. And that's what's unfortunate, is that they're busy
trying to nitpick some things that may or may not exist,
while ignoring the fact that we've been extraordinarily successful with
much of our intelligence and our military operations in the
regions to this point. There are legitimate concerns with the
Straits of Hormus, for sure, and what's next playing with
Iran after a likely military victory. Those things are legitimate
points to be questioning about. But it seems like there's
more of a pursuit for sound bites than there is
for actual Well, I mean, you may be against the war.
That's fine. You may be for the war.
Speaker 1: But the problem becomes people that don't like Donald Trump
are saying Trump's an idiot, he doesn't know what he's doing.
This is all a big giant mess. It's all discombobulated
and in fact, over at the military end of this,
they are going through a methodical punch list. We've talked
about this, going through piece by piece and taking down
the military armament of Iran so that they cannot do
danger outside of their borders. And that everybody that knows
anything about the military effort seems to be full of praise,
saying they're doing a great job. So I understand these
people that don't like Donald Trump, but when it comes
to figuring out if we are winning or we are
have a mess on our hands, I think you should
look at the military and see exactly how their operation
is doing. And it seems to be going well. They're
literally dismantling and blowing up every place where they've hidden
missiles and drones in Iran, So I.
Speaker 4: Think it's a sound strategy because what Iran has done
over the last forty plus years is make their country
into a giant bunker full of missiles in order to
attack those things that they know are vulnerable bodies for
US forces. And throughout the region the end along the
shoreline are and near the shoreline are those bunkers that
are capable of interdicting ships that are trying to get
through the Straits of Horror Moves. And they've always known this,
They've always planned on being able to affect that, and
so what we're trying to do is reach them through
bunker busting bombs and send the message that we can
get to these resources and make sure that we open
up the straits. It couldn't be the first thing we
took on, though, because we had to go first after
air defense, nuclear threats, and greater interconbolate or larger range
ballistic missiles. So this would be expected and these bombs
are very effective. We'll see if it effects the actual UH.
I guess commerce through the trade to the Straits.
Speaker 1: Right now, speaking of commerce through the Strait of Horror Moves, UH,
it brings up the question of oil prices. Let's see today.
Gasoline prices, according to Triple A, are now an average
across the country of three dollars and eighty four cents.
That is about one dollar higher than where it was
before the conflict started. So three weeks ago we were
at two eighty five. We're now at three point eighty four.
The winner in the country, if you want to call
it that, the loser for the people that live there,
is California, the highest by far with average price this
for the cheap stuff five dollars fifty six cents. One
of their counties over by where Yosemite is located. Six
dollars and thirty eight cents is the average price for
a gallon of gas. I saw a reporter standing outside
a gas station in Los Angeles where it is they're
charging over eight dollars for a gallon of gas. That's
in La California and Washington are the only two states
where the average price is above five bucks. The average
price for diesel is now five dollars and six cents.
So everything you get you get on a truck, and
the truck is paying a lot more for their diesel. Gas.
The lowest for those of you in Kansas and Oklahoma, congratulations,
you're at three dollars and twenty three cents for a
barrel of for a gallon of gasoline, and that they
were down below three. They had a two handle just
a few weeks back. So let's listen to Bob McNally.
He is, I think, if not the best, he's one
of the top five in the country when it comes
to an oil analyst. And this is his attitude about
what's going on with oil prices.
Speaker 6: We can't walk away from the oil price impacts of
Iran controlling the straight It's true that Europe, especially.
Speaker 1: Asia, relies on oil and.
Speaker 6: LNG from the Gulf much more than we do. State
does not physically import much I think about seven percent
of its oil. We can easily replace that. However, you
mentioned the pump price. What we pay at the prompt
depends on whether there's a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz,
and so we can sort of hand over the military
responsibility of opening it. But as long as it's clothes
or disrupted, we're going to be seeing ever higher distillate
and gasoline prices here in America.
Speaker 1: The interesting part about the oil markets is that oil
was up again today a couple bucks. It's been creeping
up two three four dollars a day, but it hasn't
spiked up. A lot of people predicting one hundred and
fifty maybe two hundred dollars a barrel right now is
in the high nineties, So why isn't it spiking.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a sign that the restraint that both sides
have practiced so far in not targeting each other's critical
energy infrastructure, that restraint seems to be eroding. Iran started
by attacking Emirati gas infrastructure, so Iran is by no
means innocent, and it has started the tit for tat,
and now there's been a retaliation against Iran's critical gas
production facilities, Iran's promise to retaliate. So I'm afraid what
we have here is eroding restraint and an escalating tit
for tat that hopefully won't involve targeting critical energy infrastructures
and destroying them such as carg Island or ros Tenure
or Abcake, because then we can reopen the strait eventually
and flows can resume. But if there's physical damage to
some of these facilities, it'll take a lot longer to recover.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly what the president has said, is
that they hit the military targets, but they did not
destroy the actual oil equipment that allows ships to come
into Iran and load up and export their oil. As
far as where we go from here, well.
Speaker 6: You know, so Iran is just showing that it has control.
It's flaunting its dominance. It can hit ships and then
decide which ones leave. And I think it's mainly aimed
at pleasing China.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 6: China has long desired to see the wand used in
more transactions at the expense of the dollar. So other
big countries that depend on the Gulf, India, other Asian countries,
maybe even South Korea and Japan. I don't think that'll happen.
And so what the Iranians are saying is, hey, you know,
if you stop using the dollar and start using the
wand from our friends in China, we'll be happy to
let your ships out. Now, I don't think many you're
going to go for that. China's wand is not convertible.
It's not an attractive international asset for a lot of reasons. However,
it just shows that Iran so almost taunting the United
States with comments like that. I don't think it's too meaningful.
I don't think it's going to happen, but it's a
sort of a taunting and demonstrating there who controls the
straight for now?
Speaker 1: A few words, they are for now? But yeah, he's right,
the Chinese one is not a tradable asset, so nobody
really wants to own it. What are you going to
do with it? As far as the work goes. Always,
always I love to check in to find out what
General Keen is thinking.
Speaker 7: Well, we're not just taking a capability out for Iran,
obviously to impact the stretch of the moves in the
immediate crisis here, but also to make certain that they're
not able to ever use it as leverage again regardless
of who's in charge of Iran after military hostilities are over.
So that really is the objective. And you only see
in a portion of what has taken place here, although
it's a vital and important piece that you're displaying the
use of these bombs. The Iranians when it comes to
ballistic missiles, they have storage sites above ground that are
also kind of concealed as best they possibly can, but
they also have storage sizes are very deep underneath the
ground for all the obvious reasons, and after the Twelve
Day War they concentrated on these storage sites underneath the
ground because they recognized full up how vulnerable those above
store sites were to the Israelis and the US potential attack.
But in addition to that, not only ballistic missiles, they
have anti ship missiles that can obviously do damage. And
the drones themselves. The Shaheed kill a drone that they're
using primarily not the only one, but the same one
that Russia uses in Ukraine. It can go one thousand miles.
So think about that in terms of the scale of
the problem here, in terms of what drones bring to
the battlefield. Now, so you understand, also in Ukraine we
have been using a US built drones actually by a
very famous and trumpneur by the name of Eric Smith
from Google and his company called Perennial Autonomy. They have
used a counter drome for merops and it's knocked down
over four thousand of the Shahi drones inside Ukraine. Whereas
mirops today it's in the Middle East operating against drones
and doing it quite effectively. It's not the only drone
you used in accounter drone mood certainly method excuse me,
but it's one of several that we're using quite effectively.
Speaker 1: So it's good to know that we have a vehicle
that can counter attack the drones that have been so
successful or the Ironians. But that is not the only
thing that our military is doing well.
Speaker 7: The main effort really hasn't changed, and that is a
strip away all of Aron's conventional military capability and also
their nuclear capability and make certain that cannot manufacture this
anytime soon. Again, that is the main effort, and that
absolutely continues. There's a focus, certainly as part of that
main effort to deal with the straits of a mouse,
because the Ronnings have chosen to deal with that, and
obviously we're going to respond to that. But the main
effort in itself takes care of this problem that we're
dealing with in the straits of a moves, and that
is take away their offensive capability and the future capability.
In terms of the manufacturing. What we've done, we've about
completed that. In terms of the private and public companies
that can manufacture not just ballistic missiles conventional missiles, but
cruise missiles and other capabilities that they have in terms
of manufacturing. For example, the Shaheed drone itself a full
suite of their offensive capability.
Speaker 1: So we're getting there and we're doing it methodically, and
that I think is good news of Americans can be
patient to take out the number one terrorist sponsor in
the world. They've killed so many people. You want to
talk a little bit of money. The FED had their
meeting yesterday and today they came out and as expected,
they left interest rates unchanged, the FED funds rate at
three and a half to three point seventy five. The
vote was eleven to one in favor of keeping things unchanged.
In their statement, they said the economy is still on
a solid base, that we have slightly higher inflation, that
they're predicting that the unemployment rate for the rest of
the year will remain basically unchanged at four point four percent.
So of the meeting. As far as predicting where they're
going to go for the rest of the year, seven
of the of the FED members said they see interest
rates staying unchanged for the rest of the year. Twelve
of them see cut or more so a very divided
FED on their predictions about where the economy is going.
We also got out today the Producer Price Index. This
is wholesale inflation, and it was not good. It went
up basically an annual year over year, went up three
point four percent, and services were up half a percent.
But goods, which have been much more tame, the price
of goods, actual physical things, was up one point one percent.
So that's a big, strong inflationary move that we saw
out of the producer price index, the wholesale inflation rate.
Factory orders not much to see there. They were up
one tenth of a percent. That's for the month of January.
As far as sports go, I'm so happy because there's
a gap after Super What do you do? And March Madness. Yes,
March Madness starts tonight in Dayton, Ohio, where it always
starts with the first four. So if you've been waiting
for March Madness, here we go. And in other sports,
the World Baseball Classic wrapped up last night. It was
down to two teams, Venezuela and the US Venezuela one.
The game was three to two in favor of Venezuela's
baseball team. So and then late this afternoon, sadly, another
dignified transfer took place at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.
The President flew over there from Washington to attend the
dignified transfer of the six airman who died in the
crash of the KC one five last week. So that's
it for today. Let's look at the market, because the
Dow finished down pretty sharply. They didn't like the idea
that again the Fed's not changing interest rates, but down
seven hundred and sixty eight, the Dow at forty six thousand,
two twenty five, the S ANDP with down ninety one,
Nasdack down three hundred and twenty seven. The price of
gold fell one hundred and sixty two dollars down to
four thousand and eight forty five. And oil, like I said,
it just keeps creeping up a couple bucks a day,
up two and a half today, two dollars and forty
cents now at ninety eight dollars and some change for
a barrel of oil. That's it for today. Thank you
for coming by. We will be back again tomorrow and
I hope to see you then.