News

• Fundamentals Could Not Be Stronger for Gold and Silver, nor Weaker for the U.S. Dollar and Stocks, Despite Fed or Market Nonsense to the Contrary • There Is No V-Shaped Recovery • Battered, Non-Recovered May 2021 Payrolls and Unemployment Confirmed a Still-Ravaged Economy on Par With the Great Depression • Severely Negative Annual Revisions to Industrial Production Mean the Economy Was in Recession Well Before the Pandemic Hit • Business-Cycle Conditions Are Collapsing Rapidly, Amidst an Extreme Acceleration in Inflation • 2021 Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) Could Spike to a 40-Year High, Based on Potential Third-Quarter 2021 CPI-W • Bureau of Labor Statistics Reveals It Cannot Measure the CPI Properly, At Present • FOMC Has Trouble Forecasting Inflation One Quarter Ahead, Let Alone Two Years Ahead • Despite Talk of “Tightening” in 2022 or 2023, FOMC Is “Easing” Anew in Its Latest Actions

• Benchmarked Industrial Production Revised Sharply Lower; Both Manufacturing and Mining Were Hit Hard • New Numbers Indicate the Economy Was in a Deepening Recession, Well Before the Pandemic Shutdown and Collapse • Old Numbers Showed Production Peaked in December 2018 and Flattened Out, February 2020 Pre-Pandemic Peak Was 3.75% Higher Than the Pre-Great Recession Peak • New Numbers Show Production Peaked in August 2018 and Entered Protracted Decline, February 2020 Pre-Pandemic Peak Was 1.11% (-1.11%) Below the Pre-Great Recession Peak • Manufacturing Sector Has Never Recovered Pre-Great Recession Peak Levels • April 2020 Pandemic/Economic Trough Revised Lower by 5.1% (-5.1%) • Economic Recovery Is Not as Close as Hyped by the Consensus Outlook • Negative Implications Here for the July 29th GDP Benchmarking • Chances Are Reduced for Moderating Extreme Monetary and Fiscal Policies • Evolving Circumstances Remain Extremely Strong for Gold and Silver, and Weak for the U.S. Dollar and Stocks, Despite Central Bank or Other Systemic Machinations to the Contrary

• Intractable and Deteriorating Conditions Still Signal No Imminent Economic Recovery, Irrespective of Some Bounces in March Activity Against Weather-Driven February Collapses • Monthly Annual and Post-Pandemic Payroll Declines Have Stabilized Around Minus Six-to-Seven Percent for the Last Eight Month, Weakest Showing Since 1946 • Annual-Change Gyrations Are Just Beginning for Economic, Inflation, Money Supply and Financial Return Numbers, as the Pandemic-Driven Collapse Passes It First Anniversary • Beyond Year One, Multi-Year, Crisis-Driven Collapses Need to Be Assessed Against Pre-Crisis Levels, or Stacked Two-Year Change, As Well As Year-to-Year Change • The Federal Reserve Overhauled Its Money Supply Reporting, Redefining Traditional M1 from 34.8% to 93.4% of a Not-Redefined Total M2 • This Masked Accelerating Flight-to-Liquidity in Traditional M1 from Non-M1 Components of M2 • ShadowStats Defined “Basic M1” — Combined Currency and Demand Deposits — Still Reflects the Extraordinary Liquidity Flight to, and Surge in the Narrower Money Supply • Expanded Federal Reserve Accommodation Remains Likely Well Into 2023, Given the Increasingly Negative Outlook for Imminent U.S. Economic Recovery • Fed Chair Powell Noted That Surging Money Supply No Longer Boosts the Economy • That Is Because the Current Collapse Is Pandemic, Not Business-Cycle Driven; Surging Money Growth in a Non-Business-Cycle Collapse Can Trigger Hyperinflation • Surging Monetary Base, Reserves and Currency Indicate Intensifying Systemic Problems • Underlying Fundamentals Remain Extremely Strong for Gold and Silver, and Weak for the U.S. Dollar and Stocks, Despite Central Bank or Other Systemic Machinations to the Contrary

• January 2021 Manufacturing Declined Year-to-Year for the 19th Consecutive Month, Still in the Downturn Induced by the FOMC 15 Months Before the Pandemic Collapse • Where January 2021 Year-to-Year Manufacturing Contracted by 1.0% (-1.0%), It Also Contracted by 1.8% (-1.8%) from January 2019, Two Years Ago • While the January 2021 Cass Freight Index® Gained Year-to-Year for the Fourth Straight Month, It Also Contracted by 1.6% (-1.6%) from Two Years Ago • Despite Happy Headline Gains in January 2021 Real Retail Sales, Production and Construction, the Underlying Payroll Employment Numbers Tell the Opposite Story • First-Quarter 2021 GDP Remains at Risk of Relapsing into Quarterly Contraction • January 2021 Producer Price Index Monthly Inflation Hit a Record, 10-Year High • U.S. Dollar Collapse Accelerates • Holding Physical Precious Metals Remains the Best Hedge Against Developing Inflation and Financial-Market Turmoil

• Pandemic-Driven Unemployment Soared to an April 2020 Peak of About 32%, Worse Than in the Great Depression; Such Was Against a January 2020 Pre-Pandemic U.3 Unemployment Rate of 3.5% • In the Latest Four Months, Pandemic-Driven Unemployment Has Leveled Off Around 12%, Worst Since Before World War II, Other than for the Pandemic • Payroll-Employment Benchmark Revisions Showed a Deepening, Accelerating Decline into an April 2020 Trough, With Renewed Deterioration at Present; Recovery from the Pandemic Shutdown Has Stalled and/or Is Regressing • January 2021 Annual Growth in Money Supply M1 and M2 Surged to Respective Record Highs of 69.7% and 25.8%, Despite Some Downside Benchmark Revisions • Near Record Growth of Currency in Circulation Foreshadows Inflation Risk • Nonetheless, January 2021 CPI-U Annual Inflation Hit a Soft, Ten-Month High of 1.4%, Boosted by Gasoline Prices, but Constrained by Mixed Food and Core Inflation • Stock Indices Are At or Near All-Time Highs, Coming into the First Anniversary of the Pre-Pandemic Stock-Market Peaks and Subsequent Crashes • Near-Term Financial-Market Turmoil Likely Is Far from Over, Given Renewed Deterioration in Economic Conditions